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| Smoking Is Bad For Your Cat’s Health, Too! |
Disclaimer
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Dr Kim Kendall
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 With more and more campaigns launched to convince people to give up smoking, there are not just human health issues at stake. Smoking can affect your cat’s health, too!
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'Byron's' breathing difficulties
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‘Byron’, the lover boy cat, arrived in my consulting room thin, anxious, and with a complex history. He basically commuted between two homes – one where he was pampered and adored, the other where he had to ‘work for a living’. Being ‘entire’ at 10 years of age was not the problem, however. He lives indoors in both homes, and he had become thin, with significant breathing difficulties that had developed over a period of time.
‘Byron’ is a wonderful man-cat, and very gentle to handle. After looking him over thoroughly, I found him to be in reasonable health, with halitosis (bad breath) from bad teeth, and the ‘harsh noises’ in his chest as his major problems.
His symptoms could be caused by several diseases, including heart damage (from Heartworm or other damage to the heart muscle), fluid ‘on the lungs’, destruction of the lung tissue, bronchial problems or one of various cancers. Chest X-rays showed signs of chronic bronchitis (sometimes also called Feline Asthma), while his heart was normal and there was no excess fluid anywhere.
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Feline Asthma
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Asthma is becoming a prevalent human problem in ‘Western’ countries, and Australia is high on the list of populations with an increase incidence of the disease in both adults and children. Cat’s lungs tend to be sensitive ‘allergy organs’, so it is a bit hard to say whether asthma is increasing among the feline population as well. Tropical parts of Australia are finding more cases of Heartworm in cats and there is some suggestion that early stages of heartworm larval migration may trigger asthma also.
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'Byron' gives up smoking!
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However, ‘Byron’ turned out to be allergic to cigarette smoke in his ‘work’ home! I have had owners give up smoking for their cat, but in this case, he just settled back and declared his ‘working days were over’. Treatment involved keeping him away from cigarette smoke, plus some antibiotics, corticosteroids and bronchial dilators. Much the same as humans, and in fact they are all ‘human’ drugs, except that few cats tolerate regular nebulisation, so the medications are basically oral.
‘Byron’ has grown sleek and contented (and he is still ‘all there’ – so it isn’t just a lack of hormones making cats overweight, it is excess intake of calories beyond those needed for work, just like us!). He still occasionally gets a little ‘chesty’, as there has been some permanent damage to his lung tissue, but life in general is now one long, luxurious lie-in!
As a glimpse into the future, it is interesting to note that ‘Byron’ is a 10-year-old entire male moggy, and his ‘job’ was to perpetrate moggy kittens also. This brings up many issues, obviously, in the current oversupply of ‘random-bred’ kittens, however it may (we hope) soon become commonplace to have a queue ‘even for a moggy’!
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Author: Dr Kim Kendall BVSc MACVSc (Feline Medicine) graduated from the University of Sydney in 1982 and established the East Chatswood Cat Clinic in 1994, a dedicated cat-only Veterinary Clinic. The practice does everything for cats and is a full service veterinary clinic.
www.catclinic.com.au
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