Gisele
Lairian
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2018
- Messages
- 41
- Points
- 44
Unfortunately our Sasha was diagnosed with early stages of HCM today.
She's 3 years old and isn't showing any signs of slowing down. I'm a veterinary nurse and i've always been concerned that her heart rate has seemed quite fast, a coupe of weeks ago I measured her resting heart rate at 200bpm, which is really high for an otherwise healthy 3 year old. Also at the end of last year we were in the car with her, and we had an episode of mouth breathing. We put that down to stress as she hates the car but it's always been in the back of my mind.
The vet wasn't convinced that she would have heart problems as there is no murmur, and HCM usually presents with a slow heart. But regardless I insisted on doing a heart scan for my piece of mind. Part of me really hoped that I was just being paranoid from working in an ECC vets and knowing that this is common in the breed. Sadly I was right, I don't think I was prepared for the news. We are devastated that our time with her is going to be cut very short, as we are now potentially looking at a 5 year life span for our baby.
So based on her ultrasound she has significantly thickened heart walls but no abnormal function at this time. They have taken bloods to run a pro-BNP on her so we can get a baseline result and an idea of how much time we are looking at. They also want to see her back every 6 months for follow up scans. I've been looking into weather or not medication at this stage would be helpful, but I cant seem to find any definite data on it.
Has anyone else with a HCM kitty had them on meds before they started showing symptoms and if so how did they do on it?
She's 3 years old and isn't showing any signs of slowing down. I'm a veterinary nurse and i've always been concerned that her heart rate has seemed quite fast, a coupe of weeks ago I measured her resting heart rate at 200bpm, which is really high for an otherwise healthy 3 year old. Also at the end of last year we were in the car with her, and we had an episode of mouth breathing. We put that down to stress as she hates the car but it's always been in the back of my mind.
The vet wasn't convinced that she would have heart problems as there is no murmur, and HCM usually presents with a slow heart. But regardless I insisted on doing a heart scan for my piece of mind. Part of me really hoped that I was just being paranoid from working in an ECC vets and knowing that this is common in the breed. Sadly I was right, I don't think I was prepared for the news. We are devastated that our time with her is going to be cut very short, as we are now potentially looking at a 5 year life span for our baby.
So based on her ultrasound she has significantly thickened heart walls but no abnormal function at this time. They have taken bloods to run a pro-BNP on her so we can get a baseline result and an idea of how much time we are looking at. They also want to see her back every 6 months for follow up scans. I've been looking into weather or not medication at this stage would be helpful, but I cant seem to find any definite data on it.
Has anyone else with a HCM kitty had them on meds before they started showing symptoms and if so how did they do on it?