SophiePixie
Lairian
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2018
- Messages
- 14
- Points
- 14
Hi! I thought I’d try my luck on here before potentially going down the specialist route and spending thousands of £s, as I know there are some really knowledgable sphynx owners on here who may have some answers.
Albus is 4 years old and has had a persistent cough for maybe 1.5-2 years. As a kitten he suffered with multiple bouts of conjunctivitis and my vets at the time would prescribe eye drops which would help in the short term but it would always come back. I finally pushed for tests and he was positive for chlamydia. Antibiotics cleared that up and he was like a different cat!
1-2 years later he starts coughing (short video attached). Our vets ran X-rays and diagnosed feline asthma because of ‘donuts’ on the X-ray. He used an aerokat inhaler for a few months but there was no improvement. I then started doing some research and begged for a PCR as I suspected he had mycoplasma. Our vets carried out a PCR and he was positive for mycoplasma so he was given doxycycline. When he was on this his cough stopped almost immediately (a day or two into medication) and didn’t return until a couple of weeks after stopping the doxycycline. I didn’t think the course was long enough (from memory it was 8 weeks and I asked for more but was told he probably had asthma and mycoplasma together). He then had a negative PCR test for mycoplasma.
At a similar time Albus also had some outbreaks on his skin (small red dots/bumps) and I pushed for some tests but was told to move him to hypoallergenic food as testing would be a waste of time/money. At this point we swapped vets because I didn’t really feel I was being listened to. Our new vet suggested a steroid injection to calm his skin down but also to see how he reacted in terms of his cough. His skin improved almost instantly, but there was no improvement with his cough which made us believe it wasn’t feline asthma and maybe he still had mycoplasma kicking around (we believed it could’ve been a false negative). He had another PCR and was positive so started a longer course of doxycycline. Again the cough stopped instantly. He then tested negative after the medication but unfortunately the cough returned. We ran further tests in case it was another type of infection but he was negative for all of them - Chlamydia felis, Mycoplasma felis PCR, Feline Herpes virus DNA, Calicivirus PCR, Bordetella bronchiseptica.
He had a cardio to check for HCM, and that has thankfully came back all normal. So we’re at a loss as to what it could be. My gut tells me allergies, as he is a very sensitive boy. But I don’t understand why his cough would disappear on doxycycline if it were allergies? I read an article where in humans doxycycline can reduce lung inflammation so wondered maybe this could be why? But honestly am just guessing and am not knowledgable enough about this to give an educated guess!
Any help, advice, suggestions etc. would be appreciated! Thank you from Albus and his stressed out mum
Albus is 4 years old and has had a persistent cough for maybe 1.5-2 years. As a kitten he suffered with multiple bouts of conjunctivitis and my vets at the time would prescribe eye drops which would help in the short term but it would always come back. I finally pushed for tests and he was positive for chlamydia. Antibiotics cleared that up and he was like a different cat!
1-2 years later he starts coughing (short video attached). Our vets ran X-rays and diagnosed feline asthma because of ‘donuts’ on the X-ray. He used an aerokat inhaler for a few months but there was no improvement. I then started doing some research and begged for a PCR as I suspected he had mycoplasma. Our vets carried out a PCR and he was positive for mycoplasma so he was given doxycycline. When he was on this his cough stopped almost immediately (a day or two into medication) and didn’t return until a couple of weeks after stopping the doxycycline. I didn’t think the course was long enough (from memory it was 8 weeks and I asked for more but was told he probably had asthma and mycoplasma together). He then had a negative PCR test for mycoplasma.
At a similar time Albus also had some outbreaks on his skin (small red dots/bumps) and I pushed for some tests but was told to move him to hypoallergenic food as testing would be a waste of time/money. At this point we swapped vets because I didn’t really feel I was being listened to. Our new vet suggested a steroid injection to calm his skin down but also to see how he reacted in terms of his cough. His skin improved almost instantly, but there was no improvement with his cough which made us believe it wasn’t feline asthma and maybe he still had mycoplasma kicking around (we believed it could’ve been a false negative). He had another PCR and was positive so started a longer course of doxycycline. Again the cough stopped instantly. He then tested negative after the medication but unfortunately the cough returned. We ran further tests in case it was another type of infection but he was negative for all of them - Chlamydia felis, Mycoplasma felis PCR, Feline Herpes virus DNA, Calicivirus PCR, Bordetella bronchiseptica.
He had a cardio to check for HCM, and that has thankfully came back all normal. So we’re at a loss as to what it could be. My gut tells me allergies, as he is a very sensitive boy. But I don’t understand why his cough would disappear on doxycycline if it were allergies? I read an article where in humans doxycycline can reduce lung inflammation so wondered maybe this could be why? But honestly am just guessing and am not knowledgable enough about this to give an educated guess!
Any help, advice, suggestions etc. would be appreciated! Thank you from Albus and his stressed out mum
