Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just took my 11 year old cat, Sola, in to the vet on 2/1/07 because he was vomiting every couple of days (mostly regurgitated food, but on the 1st it was bile which got me worred). The vet did a complete blood count and urinalysis and everything checked out okay except for his amylase value, it was just a little high.

My vet told me not to worry, but of course I'm worried because he was just in the vet in November for these checks and everything was normal. Plus, his sister died one month ago today from a heart attack and she was a perfectly healthy cat who basically just dropped dead without showing any signs of cardiomyopathy. So I'm a little neurotic right now.

We also took Sola in to get an Echo, ultrasound and thorough check of his heart once it was determined that his biological sister died of a heart attack to make sure that he wasn't prone to that as well and they found that he has a slight defect - atrial septal defect, but the vet said not to worry about that type of defect and that if it hasn't bothered him in 11 years, it shouldn't now. What do you think?

As far as the amylase, I've read that high values can be a pre-cursor for renal failure, though his creatinine and BUN values are completely normal as well as his urinalysis and I've read that those are the most important elements when looking at kidney function.

Any advice would be appreciated! And if it helps, Sola is a Norweigan Forest cat mix who is a male-neutered, 11 years old, totally indoor cat who eats a holistic diet - CA Natural wet and dry food. I don't have toxic plants or flowers or anything in the house and I use non-chemical cleaners to clean the house.

Thanks so much for your help!

Lisa

Unless the amylase is far out of the normal range, it is not significant. If it is very high, it relates to the pancreas, not the kidneys. If you stop giving dry food, which no cat should have, the vomiting will probably also stop. Since your cat is an indoor cat, I hope you are not giving him vaccinations.

Thanks for your reply regarding the high amylase value in my cat. I know I'm just a little over protective because my other kitty had a heart attack and she had no clinical symptoms of cardiomyopathy before it happened.

I haven't given vaccines since my cats were kittens back when I didn't know any better! But that was over 10 years ago.

I currently give my cat 1/4 cup of dry food (California Natural Chicken and Rice) and 2 T wet food (California Natural Salmon and sweet potato)and bottled water everyday. I really shouldn't give dry food at all? He's 16 pounds and needs to lose a few. Though he is a big cat by nature.

As for the atrial septal defect, aside from re-checking it in 6 months to see if there are any changes, is there anything you recommend doing? He has this sort of cough once every few weeks and then vomits clear fluid. My vet thinks that this is from allergies.

Thanks so much for your help.

Lisa Acho Remorenko

Stop the dry food completely, then your cat will start to lose weight.

As for the atrial septal defect, aside from re-checking it in 6 months to see if there are any changes, is there anything you recommend doing? He has this sort of cough once every few weeks and then vomits clear fluid. My vet thinks that this is from allergies.

A septasl defect is an inborn problem which your cat has had from birth. I don't think that anything will change that at this point.

Great! thanks. We're also thinking of bringing him with us to Mammoth for a week, which is 6,000 feet in elevation. It's only a 5 hour drive from where we live, but since we're going to be gone a week we didn't want to leave him alone (his sister just died of a heart attack a month ago and he's never been alone before). My vet said that the altitude shouldn't affect his heart defect, but what do you think? A friend of mine moved from San Fransisco to Mammoth with her cat who had a heart murmur and her cat suffered from pancreatitis! Maybe I should just leave him home?

There is no relationship I can see between a heart murmur and pancreatitis. She should do fine on the trip, as long as she doesn't mind traveling per se.

You don't think that the coughing is related to the atrial septal defect? I've never seen a cat cough before! He never used to do this when we lived in MI, so that's why my vet thinks it's from allergies (we now live in CA). Have you had any experience with cats that cough? He probably does it once every few weeks and usually it's in the middle of the night.