Kitten coughing

[boscibo]

I'm pretty sure this just started yesterday. My kitten will have short fits of coughing. it isn't one cough, it will start and she will cough continuously for about ten seconds, then stop. She has done this 4-5 times since yesterday.

Her eyes are clear, her noes is not runny, and she hasn't been sneezy.

Jeff thinks it is the dusty litter. I'm calling the vet, but until I do has anyone had experience wit ha coughing kitten? I'm scared.

[christa]

I've had plenty of experience with coughing!

Ask your vet about the potentials for ASTHMA.

Josie has asthma and she started out coughing as a kitten. We let her cough like that for probably the first year of her life. Didn't know what was going on. Finally she got so bad, she almost died on us. We had to rush her to the ER vet one night and they said we'd gotten her there just in time. Now she has to have an "allergy shot" about every 6-8 weeks to control her asthma attacks.

Who ever knew that a cat could have asthma?

There are a few other cats on this board with asthma.

[catnapper]

Christa beat me to my reply, though she is definately ourresident authority on living with an asthmatic cat!

I'd think she'd be sneezing over the litter dust, not coughing.

[boscibo]

Thanks! Abby has asthma, but when she has an attack it is different - Abby crouches down and acts like she's horking up a hairball - one long, low cough. Abby hasn't had an attack in years.

This is a series of cough-cough-cough...almost like a smoker's cough (nobody here smokes). I suppose asthma can manifest itself in different ways, so maybe a possibliity. I was also thinking possibly a hairball? She has super-long fur, and this is my first long-haired cat.

[catmandu]

Asthma cannot be ruled out,but in my experiences its more than likely a hairball.that makes that cough.
Try a little hairball remedy on the end of the Kittens nose and see if that doesnt help.

[Laura's Babies]

I agree with catmandu, try a hairball remedy. Amy went through a spell where she coughed and I ran her right off the the vet and he could find no reason for it so we figured it was hairballs.. She only did it for about a month and then just quit and hasn't done it since.

[Catsnclay]

Yep, Asthma

We just learned our little guy, Yoshi (a siamese - they are pre-disposed ) has it.

He too was coughing, and looking like he needed to hack a hairball up for about a week, so I gave him lots of hairball medication but no hairball. So off to the vet's we went, and she took some x-rays and sure enough......

But the *good* part about all of this is, she said we caught it early, and although he is on asthma meds now, in the near future we will start to wean him off and see what happens.

Now that Yoshi has this, we also had to make some changes around the house:

1) a litter that is less dusty.

2) no more of those air fresheners I love so much

3) and the worst.......open litter boxes.... (NONE of my guys cover )

There were a few other things we had to change, but these were the top 3.

[christa]

Sometimes asthma just cannot be avoided though. For instance where we live, there is a huge human factor for asthma, so sadly, our vet says that she sees a lot of cats with allergies & asthma. There are things you can do. We've jumped through hoops to get Josie's to go away and it just won't. Although we did move into a new house and she did go almost 8 weeks, which was longer than she had ever gone . . . that was great! We figured that the new carpet helped.

Good luck finding the cause for the cough. Still Sounds like asthma to me though.