Cat with Feline Asthma

A video of a female cat with feline asthma. Her name is "Dave"! It is distressing. Sometimes videos get pulled off the internet for whatever reason so don't be surprised if it does not play.

Feline asthma is also called feline allergic bronchitis. It is caused by the cat being hypersensitive to environmental allergens. At an acute level it is similar to human asthma. It affects 1% of all cats. Siamese cats are slightly predisposed to it.



Airborne allergens such as cigarette smoke, litter dust, household sprays and cat deodorizers can trigger an attack of feline asthma. Sometimes the cause is heartworm and other times the cause is unknown.

You can see from the video how the cat behaves. There is wheezing and coughing and the cat has hunched shoulders or lies down. The mucous membranes (e.g. lips and gums etc.) are bluish due to a lack of oxygen in the blood. The cat might swallow fluid coughed up.

Treatment: see the veterinarian who will prescribe drugs to relieve it. It is a chronic condition so it will recur. I would have thought a review of the environmental conditions would be wise to try and eliminate the allergen(s). It needs to properly diagnosed first as two other conditions produce similar symptoms: pleural effusion and pulmonary edema.