My cat has noisy breathing & heart murmur. Who should diagnose?

Question

My cat Winston either has stertor or stridor when he breathes. Usually when he’s annoyed, but sometimes it’s random. It’s frequent, but not always. My question is what could be causing it? I have an appointment setup with a veterinary internal medicine specialist for his echocardiogram (grade two heart murmur). Can my regular feline vet find the cause? Or should I have the specialist look for it? Thank you I’m advance. Pet's info: Cat | Domestic Shorthair | Male | neutered | 3 years and 4 months old | 12 lbs

Dr. Dayna, DVM, CVA · Accepted Answer

Hi there, and thank you for posting this question about Winston. There are many different causes of respiratory noises in cats such as feline asthma, heart worm disease, lung worm, and nasopharyngeal polyps, among others. As a general practitioner myself, regular veterinarians are very capable of diagnosing many of these problems. However, if you will be at the internist I would suggest that you bring this up with them because it is possible (although less likely) that it could be associated with the heart disease. At least having a conversation with the internist about the problem would be a good place to start. Then you can bring that information back to your primary veterinarian and you can begin a work up from there. Best of luck and I hope you find an answer soon. Thank you for using Pet Coach.

My cat has noisy breathing & heart murmur. Who should diagnose?

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