My four year old cat has had building health issues. Mostly digestive. Throws up more often then she should since kitten. Then started having pet dandruff (she is overweight and hearty eater, begger, yet extremely picky). Then started hiccups and occasional burps and very stinky bms. A few weeks ago occasional sneezing. Then sneezing when she sniff some things. Then last week she had not eaten much. She’s fine now back to hefty eating. But last Sunday started episodes of what doctor things is asthma. Involuntary spasms looks like she’s trying to bring something up and high pitched noise. I am so sad cause I could barely afford to do regular vet appts I don’t think I’m going to be able to afford care and don’t qualify for credit. Is there anything I could do? Any home health care changes? Any financial help?
Hi Crystal, It's hard to say if all the digestive signs you've noticed can be locked down to one issue. If she brings up food right after she eats and it looks undigested, it could instead be regurgitation and related to eating too quickly and swallowing air with it. You could try out a slow feeding bowl, of which there are many designs found on chewy or amazon. But it is possible she has a degree of inflammatory bowel disease if you're seeing chronic vomiting, espcially if she vomits randomly and this has increased in frequency.
For the asthma, if the episodes are infrequent, maybe less than weekly, it might be okay to monitor. My own cats have such episodes occasionally. I consider treating when they are happening at least weekly or more often.
One thing you could talk to your vet about if finances are tight is to start her on a course of prednisolone, which is typically quite inexpensive when you get it through you vet. Oral prednisolone can be used to address both conditions and then reduced to the lowest dose and frequency that helps to control the signs.
Ideally, you would do a more thorough work up for IBD, or start a prescription diet trial first, but if finances are tight, that's one thing to consider.
Additionally for the asthma, cats can be really sensitive to air fresheners, essential oil diffusers, scented candles, etc. So if this just started, make sure nothing new like that was recently introduced.
I do see overweight cats that develop dandruff over the rump area because they can't groom as well back there. I'm not sure if your kitty is overweight, but with your mention of eating a lot, I thought I'd mention it.
I wish there was more in the way of financial assistance, but Care Credit is the only thing available in many cases if you don't have pet insurance.