Heart failure in cats: causes, symptoms and treatment
Heart failure in cats: a disorder caused by the malfunctioning of the cardiovascular system. Let’s see the causes, symptoms and treatment of this problem.
Although you do everything to prevent your four-legged friend from getting sick, unfortunately it can happen that the latter can have some ailments.
One of these disorders is heart failure, the latter being a heart condition that occurs when the heart is unable to pump blood around the animal’s body.
But let’s see below, what are the causes of heart failure in cats, what are the symptoms to observe and above all what we can do to help cat.
Heart failure in cats: causes and symptoms
Heart failure in cats can affect both the right side of the heart and the left side.
If the affected area is the left one, most of the time, there is an accumulation of fluid in the lungs. In the event that the affected sector is the right one, the accumulation of fluid will be present in the abdomen and in the other organs.
Heart failure can result from malformations, heart disease, valve problems or arrhythmias. Such heart failure can cause a reduction in blood pumping from both the heart to the organs and from the organs to the heart.
The symptoms of heart failure in cats depend on the area of the heart that this disorder has compromised. If you have heart failure on the left side, the symptoms are:
Cough in cats
Respiratory difficulties
Loss of appetite in the cat
Increased respiratory rate
Pulmonary edema
Pleural effusion
In case there is heart failure in the right side of the heart, which is very rare in the cat, the symptoms are as follows:
Fluid in the abdomen
Fluid in the chest cavity
Liquid in the limbs
Fluid in the liver
Heart failure in cats: diagnosis and treatment
If your four-legged friend has the symptoms listed in the previous paragraph, you should contact your veterinarian.
The latter will be able to diagnose the presence of heart failure by carrying out a thorough physical visit to the cat and various analyses such as: radiography, ultrasound, blood tests, echocardiography.
Being a disorder caused by the presence of pathologies, the treatment is mainly based on the severity of the disease that caused the heart failure in the cat and mainly involves the prescription of drugs.
In case of pulmonary edema, oxygen therapy and absolute rest could be useful for the cat. In addition, the veterinarian prescribes the intake of diuretics to eliminate the fluid present in the cat’s lungs.
The same procedure is carried out in the event of the presence of liquid in the abdomen of the feline. It is advisable that the cat is under control so that the condition of the cat does not improve and becomes stable.
