Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 4: Recognizing Early Symptoms
• Part 2 of 4: Recognizing Late Symptoms
• Part 3 of 4: Visiting your veterinarian
• Part 4 of 4: Examining the animal
• Tips

Cats, like other mammals, suffer from heart disease. However, in cats, these diseases are difficult to detect at an early stage. Their relatively low mobility and ability to conduct bOMost of the time, in a dream, symptoms are hidden, which are more pronounced in animals leading a more active lifestyle. Another difficulty is that the symptoms of heart disease are similar to those of the respiratory tract and lungs. Therefore, it is important to closely monitor the health of the cat, and when the first symptoms of the disease appear, immediately consult a veterinarian.

Steps

Part 1 of 4: Recognizing Early Symptoms

1. 1 Pay attention to the cat's lethargic behavior. When it is difficult for the heart to cope with its functions, the animal becomes lethargic.
   • This is because even minor physical activity, such as walking or climbing stairs, puts more stress on the circulatory system.
   • If there is not enough blood circulation, the cat will feel dizzy and weak. Therefore, the animal prefers to move as little as possible, avoiding physical activity.
2. 2 Pay attention to increased breathing intensity. Another sign of a cat's heart disease is rapid breathing, even if it is at rest. This phenomenon is called increased breathing intensity.
   • If you suspect your cat is breathing rapidly, observe it by counting the number of breaths per minute. Do this several times to be sure of the result. This information will be useful to the veterinarian, since many cats, when they find themselves in an unfamiliar environment of a veterinary clinic, breathe faster, which makes it difficult to correctly determine the respiration rate of the animal at rest.
   • The normal respiratory rate for a cat is 20-30 breaths per minute. More than 35-40 breaths per minute at rest is considered a high frequency, and a frequency above 40 is a clear abnormality.
   • The rapid breathing of an animal can be caused by the accumulation of fluid in its lungs, which reduces the efficiency of oxygen metabolism in the lung tissue. To get enough oxygen, the cat is forced to breathe more often, thereby compensating for the reduced oxygen exchange.
3. 3 See if your pet has difficulty breathing. Another warning sign is mouth breathing, or shortness of breath. For cats, breathing through the mouth is not typical (unless the animal is in a state of severe stress, or has not yet moved away after vigorous play).
   • Breathing through the mouth, the cat tries to increase the flow of oxygen to the lungs, which indicates a difficult oxygen exchange.
4. 4 Observe if the cat is in the oxygen deprivation position. If the animal lacks oxygen, it can assume the posture of "oxygen starvation". In this case, the cat falls to the ground with its belly, stretching its head and neck forward. At the same time, she puts her elbows to the sides of the chest, trying to expand the chest as much as possible with each breath.
5. 5 Poor appetite is also a cause for concern. Many cats with heart disease have a decreased appetite. During swallowing, the animal holds its breath. Due to a lack of oxygen in heart disease, the cat will be reluctant to hold on to the already labored breathing in order to swallow food.

Part 2 of 4: Recognizing Late Symptoms

1. 1 Watch to see if your pet loses consciousness. Unfortunately, over time, the disease often progresses and symptoms worsen. One of the late symptoms of heart disease is fainting. A cat may faint at times when the blood circulation becomes too weak to supply the brain with sufficient oxygen.
2. 2 Check for signs of fluid accumulation in the abdominal cavity. Another late symptom of heart disease is the accumulation of fluid in the abdomen, caused by changes in the blood vessels and leakage of blood into the cavity between the internal organs.
3. 3 Paralysis of the hind legs is also possible. Another late symptom of heart disease is hind limb paralysis.
   • In advanced stages of heart disease, blood clots can form where the main artery splits into two near the hind legs.
   • These clots interfere with normal blood circulation in the hind legs, causing them to become paralyzed.

Part 3 of 4: Visiting your veterinarian

1. 1 Take your pet to your veterinarian for a checkup. If you experience any of the above symptoms, visit your veterinarian. During the examination, the doctor will listen to the heart of the animal with a stethoscope and, based on the results of the preliminary examination, will prescribe the necessary tests.
2. 2 Observing the breathing of an animal. To assess the severity of the disease, your veterinarian may observe your cat's breathing while it is lying quietly in a basket or box.
   • This will help to assess the breathing of the animal in the most relaxed state before it is stressed during the physical examination.
   • The doctor will calculate the breathing rate and determine the degree of difficulty in breathing.
3. 3 Signs of abnormal breathing. As a rule, it is difficult to detect the movement of the chest of a healthy animal when breathing. In the case of shortness of breath (caused by heart or lung problems), the chest of the cat will noticeably expand and narrow, and its movements are easy to see.
   • Another sign of shortness of breath is a noticeable raising and lowering of the cat's abdomen with each inhalation and exhalation. This type of breathing is called "abdominal breathing" and indicates that the animal is trying to increase the amount of air entering the lungs.
   • It should be noted that cats rarely cough as a result of heart disease, unlike dogs, in which coughing is a common symptom of heart disease. This is because there are fewer receptors in the airways of cats that initiate coughing when there is a lack of oxygen.
4. 4 Tell your veterinarian about the history of heart murmurs previously diagnosed in your cat. The doctor will want to know if your pet has had a heart murmur before.
   • The presence of a heart murmur at a young age indicates a congenital heart defect that can develop over time.
   • However, the absence of heart murmurs at a young age does not mean that they cannot appear in the future.If your cat is experiencing heart and breathing problems, it is important to listen to the heartbeat and see if there is a murmur in it.
5. 5 Have the vet listen to your heart murmur. The doctor will listen to the animal's heart and determine if there are noises, how intense they are, and check the heart rate and heart rate.
   • Most cats with heart disease have heart murmurs. They are caused by turbulent blood flow in the heart chambers. Heart pathologies such as thickening of the valve leaflets or thickening of the walls lead to the appearance of heart murmurs.
   • Although heart disease often causes heart murmurs, the opposite is not always true, meaning that if a cat has a heart murmur, it does not necessarily mean that it is suffering from heart disease. Many murmurs are "harmless" and are not associated with serious circulatory problems.
6. 6 Ask your doctor about your heart rate. By the frequency of heart contractions, one can judge whether its work is difficult. The normal frequency for cats is approximately 120-140 beats per minute.
   • However, a mistake is not excluded, since the cat's heart beats more often under stress. Most veterinarians are of the opinion that, in a clinical setting, heart rate is within the normal range if it does not exceed approximately 180 beats per minute. BOLarger values ​​are considered abnormal. This is important because a diseased heart has a lower stroke volume (it pumps less blood with each stroke than a healthy heart).
   • To compensate and maintain blood pressure at the proper level, the heart is forced to beat more often (more beats with less shock pressure allows blood circulation to be maintained).
7. 7 Ask your veterinarian about your cat's heart rate. Irregular heartbeats indicate that the heart is not working properly. A healthy heart rate has two characteristics.
   • First, heart beats occur at regular intervals. Secondly, the cat has "sinus arrhythmia". This concept means the normal acceleration and deceleration of the heartbeat, in sync with the inhalation and exhalation of the animal.
   • An abnormal heart rhythm is characterized by irregularity. This rhythm can consist of a series of normal beats followed by irregular beats of the heart. This happens when the heart muscle is damaged and the scar tissue interacts with electrical signals in the heart wall, affecting the intervals between contractions.
8. 8 Have your veterinarian check the color of your pet's mucous membranes. A healthy cat's gums should be as pink as your own. The doctor should examine the gums, the color of which is indicative of circulatory problems.
   • In the case of a bad heart and insufficient blood circulation, the gums become pale, and sometimes even whiten. However, this symptom does not unequivocally indicate a sick heart, since the gums can also turn pale with anemia or disease of the gums themselves.
9. 9 Watch your veterinarian check for jugular vein distension. Some of the doctor's manipulations can look rather strange: for example, he can moisten the fur on a cat's neck with rubbing alcohol. This is done in order to reveal the outline of the jugular veins, through which blood returns to the heart.
   • The jugular veins run through the neck, and if the heart is obstructed, blood builds up in them, causing them to bloat.

Part 4 of 4: Examining the animal

1. 1 Please note that additional testing is usually necessary for an accurate diagnosis. Such an examination will most likely be needed to confirm the initial suspicion of heart disease, to find out the causes of the disease and its severity.
   • When diagnosing heart murmurs in cats, a special blood test (BNP test), chest x-ray, echocardiography are usually used.
2. 2 Your veterinarian may order a BNP test. This blood test is designed to measure the amount of "biological heart markers" in the blood. Cardiac biomarkers are proteins secreted by diseased cells in the heart muscle.
   • The results of the analysis are divided into three groups: low concentration indicates that clinical symptoms are not caused by heart disease; a normal level means heart disease is possible but unlikely; a high concentration indicates serious damage to the heart muscle of the animal.
   • The BNP test is used to rule out a variant of heart disease (in the case of a low biomarker), and also to monitor the progress of treatment in cats with heart disease (with successful treatment, the initially high level should decrease).
3. 3 Your veterinarian may order a chest x-ray of the animal. Pictures are taken in two directions - from above and from the side. This allows you to judge the size and shape of the heart.
   • Sometimes x-rays do not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn because in the case of one of the common heart diseases in cats, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the heart muscle thickens in the middle of the organ. Since X-rays only allow you to see the outer outline of the heart, and not what is inside it, this disease is difficult to detect with a single X-ray.
   • However, x-rays are useful for determining the pathways of blood flow in the lungs and detecting pulmonary edema, which may indicate heart disease, and for detecting conditions such as asthma or lung tumors in a cat.
4. 4 Have your veterinarian do an echocardiogram. This test is standard in the detection and diagnosis of heart disease in cats. It allows you to observe the image of the heart chambers, the dynamics of heart contractions, blood flow in the heart, and also check the condition of the heart valves.
   • Ultrasound can also detect such a problem as the accumulation of fluid in the heart bag, which is not detected by X-ray.
   • With echocardiography, your doctor can also determine the size of your heart chambers. This, in turn, allows you to calculate the work of the heart and reveal whether it is normal.
5. 5 With ultrasound, your veterinarian will determine many important parameters, including the following:
   • Left ventricular wall thickness... In hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the wall thickness of the left ventricle increases significantly, which leads to a decrease in the volume filled with blood.
   • Left ventricle, aortic proportion... Using an ultrasound card, the doctor can measure the width of the left ventricle, the main chamber from which blood begins its journey through the body. The width of the aorta is also determined, after which the ratio between these two values ​​is calculated. The result of the calculation shows whether the left ventricle is dilated. This parameter is important because in some heart conditions, the heart muscle weakens and becomes flaccid, resulting in increased blood pressure inside the heart, which stretches and weakens the walls of the ventricle.
   • Measuring contractility... This is another useful parameter calculated from the results of an ultrasound examination. The width of the ventricle is measured in a fully relaxed and maximally compressed position. As a result, the percentage ratio between these values ​​is determined, which is compared with the tabular values ​​corresponding to the norm. Deviations from the tabular values, both in the smaller and larger directions, indicate a heart disease.

Tips

• Symptoms such as heavy or rapid breathing, decreased appetite, weakness indicate heart or lung problems. To find out the exact reason, the veterinarian needs to examine the animal, and after a general examination, a further, more thorough examination is likely to be needed.