My cat Maggie breathes heavy

[pinkelbows]

My one year old cat Maggie seems to breath really loud and heavy. When she lies next to me at night she sighs and almost kinda snores. She is a lil bit of a "chunk-a-monk-a" so maybe it's because she's a little overweight? She doesn't really sneeze very often so I am pretty sure it's not allergies. Last time I took her to the vet was last July when she was about 4 or 5 months old. Am I being paranoid or do you think I should have her checked out?

[slick]

Welcome to Pet Talk. You'll love it here. Did the heavy breathing just start or has she always been that way? If she plays hard and eats and pees and poops well, then may nothing to panic about but since it's been almost a year since her last checkup maybe another one is in order. My Speckles is overweight and she snores as well. Too funny.

[Nomilynn]

All I can say is - request an xray. My Bassett just breathed heavy too, and now she's dealing with a pretty serious disease. An xray should tell you if there is something more going on than just a "fluffy" kitty ;)

Good luck :)

[Amanda]

Hi there-

I have a loud breather too(also snorts sometimes). In addition she coughed once in a while and we (me and vet) thought that was hairballs...but this weekend the coughing escalated and for the first time it became obvious that she was really "working" at breathing....so off to the vet yesterday for some xrays and it turns out Cleo has asthma. The weird thing is the research says asthma affects about 1% of the cat population and this is my second kitty with asthma! She got a shot of steroids to make her feel comfy fairly quickly...and then depending on how long she goes without symptoms will either be treated with periodic shots or go to a twice a day pill...(the shots are not a good alternative for younger cats who need them frequently because of the accumulative effects of the steroids over the years)...

so...to be on the safe side, prob not a bad idea to get xrays to rule out anything serious like poor Bassett is dealing with or asthma which isn't all that serious but definitely needs to be treated for the cat's comfort and so it doesn't excalate into something serious. I'll keep my fingers crossed that in the end you just have a "chubby loud breathing cat." ;)