A cute asthma

Yesterday, my baby girl was diagnosed with a cute asthma...good thing it wasn't ugly asthma ;) All giggles aside, I have been pretty worried about her lately. Every few months she'll get wheezing fits, but it's usually after we've opened the windows. After a quick trip to the vet for a shot of methylprednisolone, she's good as new for quite a while. Those shots usually last her about 5-6 months. This last one only lasted 2.

A couple of nights ago she wouldn't stop wheezing. She'd do it for about a minute straight, stop for a minute or two and start all over again. I didn't know what to do, so I tried massaging her lungs for some reason and she ended up being able to fall asleep for the rest of the night with no more wheezing. Before we had always just assumed that she had allergies to something outside and it would cause her lungs to act up, but this time we hadn't had the windows open at all.

The vet said that she has an acute case of asthma and gave her steroids that she'll be on for the next few weeks. I'm really hoping that she just has cases of it here and there and that it doesn't turn into a chronic problem for her. She gets really jumpy when this happens and it really seems to scare her. I of course am a wreck because I think she can't breathe! She's been on the prednisone for a whole day now & since she started it she's been wheeze-free! I'm so thankful it seems to be working. I kind of wonder if she's ever even breathed this well in her life.

Anyway, I wanted to blog about this for anyone who might have cats. Apparently cat asthma is more common than I thought, and a lot of times it's mistaken as furballs. It does look like when a cat tries to cough up furballs, but they never actually produce anything and they do this neck-stretching-out thing as they heave. If you see your cat doing this, try a furball remedy first to make sure it's not something that's easy to fix, but if it continues get them into the vet!

Here's what she looks like when she wheezes. Usually it's more wheezing & fewer coughs, but you get the idea...