My cat was recently diagnosed with asthma. An inhaler was prescribed,
but he hates it. He does this sad drawn out meow when he uses it and the last time the claws came out and the meow was louder. If he sees it, he goes the other way. So now I keep it out of sight and I haven't used it on him for days. We have a follow up in a couple of weeks with his vet. He's a bigger cat and the vet said he doesn't really want to do steroids for that reason. He thinks getting him to lose weight would help, so I've been cutting back on his food. He's sixteen pounds and indoor. I have another cat and they play a lot at night, he plays with cat toys here and there, so he's pretty active and carries his weight well, but the vet says he's still a bit overweight. Anyway, at this point, I don't want to use the inhaler with him, because of how he's reacted.
Are there any alternatives to treat his asthma or any
suggestions on getting him ok with using it?
Ty
Hi Ty, this is not an uncommon problem. I think it's not a good expectation to have a cat diagnosed with asthma and move right to an inhaler. Usually, we want to at least start on oral steroids to get the symptoms under control. From a starting anti-inflammatory dose, you can often get the dose much lower down to every other day or even 2-3 times per week, to try to reduce the risk of steroid side effects (like inducing diabetes in overweight cats). While working on getting symptoms under control, we can try to work on training with the inhaler. If you get the AeroKat inhalant chamber, what you try to do is get your cat used to the chamber but without using the actual inhaler. You ultimately need to have it in place for a couple seconds. When training with just the chamber, you need to use positive reinforcement with treat rewards and gradually increase the amount of time you keep the chamber in place. This may take a couple weeks to get a cat comfortable with it. The last step is attaching the actual inhaler to the chamber. If using the inhaler is successful, you can gradually wean off the oral steroid. Using an oral medication bronchodilator can also be considered, but since patients can develop tolerance to them over time, I always think it's best to conserve those for refractory cases or emergencies.
- Thanks so much for this advice!! I'll take it out to get him use to seeing it and go from there, with that step by step process.