More challenges...

A few posts back I vented a little bit of frustration about the challenges of feline heart disease. I just finished reading up on some of the latest regarding feline HEARTWORM disease. The more we find out about it, the scarier it gets - our cats NEED to be using heartworm prevention (mine have been all their life). Here's a link to a great website that discusses it in further detail:

http://www.vin.com/WebLink.plx?URL=http://www.knowheartworms.org/nelson.asp

I send you to this page of the website because I want you to get to know one of the vets who has been instrumental in increasing awareness. Just in case you don't have it in you to visit that page, here's something that he wrote recently that really should get your attention:

"In 1997 I was...in my 18th year of practice along the upper Texas gulf coast where heartworm disease (HWD) was, and still is, a major problem in DOGS. My practice administered adulticidal therapy to 4 to 6 dogs and diagnosed about twice that many every WEEK. That's a lot of heartworms (HW) but we rarely diagnosed HWs in a cat. That year, Feline Heartgard was introduced and clients were asking me if they needed to put their cats on HW preventive. My response was NO, it was rare, a freak of nature issue and we only diagnosed a cat with HWs every once in a Blue Moon. Having said that, I did a literature search on the incidence of HW in cats and found very little information. So I arranged with our local shelters to have the euthanized stray cats delivered to my practice for necropsy. My intent was to prove a certain pharmaceutical company wrong. I was going to prove that feline HWD was indeed a rare disease. The first week I necropsied 8 cats or I should say my technician necropsied 8 cats. We found adult HWs in THREE. That certainly got my attention. To make a long story short, we necropsied 259 cats over a one year period, tested them for FeLV, FIV and HW antibodies. We found adult worms in 25 cats (9.67%), antibodies in 26% of all cats tested, and that there was no correlation between the FeLV/FIV status and HW infections."

Heartworm disease is out there, and you're cat is at risk, EVEN if you cat never goes outside. All it takes is one mosquito bite, and according to the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, somewhere around 25 to 33% of the cats they see with heartworm disease are indoor only cats. Mosquitoes are responsible for transmission and can get inside your house. Over the next few months, you are likely to start seeing television commercials about a new cat product that protects against heartworm disease. My hope is that it will further raise awareness to help to save lives and reduce disease.

More recalls to come most likely...

It's been a sad few weeks reflecting on the status of our food industry, and more concerning news has come up over the last few days. Looks like a contaminated rice protein has been implicated. Know that we are keeping abreast of the situation, and if any products that have moved through our facility have come up as suspect, we will be making an effort to contact you. (At this time, only two products we have carried - Hill's MD dry and Royal Canin Hypoallergenic HP 23 dry - have been recalled). The latest food to be implicated is by Natural Balance - unfortunately, we have to suspect that more foods will be discovered over the next few days.

Silent but violent

While some folks would associate the title of my post with something else entirely, I have heart disease on my mind at the moment, and that's how is strikes me. For all the detail that one can put into a physical examination, sometimes cardiac disease can be extremely elusive. Sure, there are times where you hear a murmur, or the history obviously fits in with heart disease, but there are many times where the heart sounds absolutely normal up to the day a cat dies of a heart attack. I just got off the phone with a client whose cat whose heart disease has been in stealth mode until very subtle signs appeared the other week. The cat was walking a little strangely, and we were able to identify a congenital problem with the knees that could account for that. The problem was, the cat barely improved on pain control. We tried stronger medications, but still no improvement. A few days later, the appetite was reduced, and we were left scratching our heads. Thankfully, we moved to have the cat stay in the hospital, and finally a clue presented itself that perhaps the problem was with the heart. Fast forward a bit, heart tests were conducted, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was identified, and appropriate management was implemented. 6 days later, things are just about the way they always were.

This is what I would ask you to focus on: a cat showed no signs except for a slightly different walk, showed absolutely no signs of heart disease on exam, but is just about normal now that the heart disease is being treated.

So heart disease can be silent on exam - and from time to time, a cat will die and no one knew things were heading that way. I saw a different cat last week who did show obvious abnormalities on exam: this cat had a heart murmur so loud that both Dr. Cornelius and I initially thought we were listening to the cat rapidly breathing. While this unsuspecting client was expecting a routine visit in preparation for a health certificate and a flight to England, what she received was the upsetting news that her cat had dramatic heart abnormalities that we aren't even sure how to treat. We convinced her to have a boarded cardiologist weigh in on the findings, but I just cannot imagine what can be done (within reason). This cat definately should not fly, and will very likely no longer be with us in 2008.

Am I giving up on this cat - certainly not - but I am being realistic about our limitations regarding treating certain diseases. And feline cardiology is among the most frustrating sections of feline medicine given how every few months a new study comes out that completely contradicts the previous one. This reality makes certain days very challenging, and sometimes there just aren't enough cute kitten exams to compensate.

Ah - the blue hair...

So I've been kicking myself in the rear about not posting to this blog (as opposed to my other super secret scandalous one which I update hourly) and have been debating this Monday evening whether to post or to go to bed. Of course, I check in on Dr. C's blog to see who's the bigger slacker on this endeavor and wonder how she knows about the blue hair. Guess it will be something to bring up in rounds Tuesday.

For the record, when I was a third year in vet school, I had this very strange lady cut my hair several times. My hairline was still decent (I wasn't a vet yet you see) and hair actually got in my eyes because we kept it long. So one day she convinced me to try highlights and the next thing I knew I was sporting large potions of platinum. While I cringe to think back on it, at the time I thought it looked splendid. That same crazy lady gave me hair product to help style the mop on my head - some was blue - I put it in my hair maybe once, probably to annoy my manager at Wings and More - I do not know how this information got out.

So that's that. Hopefully I'll get around to posting something relevant to cats next time.