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[lareinadeluz]

today has been a shitty shitty day.

So, I brought Fergal into the small animal hospital for a "heart murmur workup" which to be honest, I really thought would yield nothing horrifying or important. He'd had the grade two (out of six) murmur since he was a kitten...so I figured, perhaps its something physiological that isn't going to get worse.

Well

Comments

=(

[macula_densa]

I'm sorry to hear about Fergal. =( On the bright side, many cats with HCM remain subclinical; it's quite common. Hopefully he'll be one of those.

Atenolol will help keep him from being tachycardic and going into atrial fibrillation. Cats with HCM tend to develop a very high heart rate as a method to compensate for their decreased stroke volume, which results from the thickening heart muscle (i.e. concentric hypertrophy). Atenolol will help alleviate the stress on the heart from that tendency, since it is a beta blocker.

Does that make sense? If you have questions, I'm happy to try to explain.

Re: =(

[lareinadeluz]

yes! thats what he said, about altenolol being a beta blocker and helping the stress on his heart. Dr. M also said that his left atrium was not dilated...which was a good sign, although he needs another echo in a few months to monitor it.

i'm really glad to hear that some cats remain sublinical, i thought i was grasping at straws to hope he wouldn't get worse - it really makes me feel better to hear that there is a *real* chance of this. he'd had the murmur for so long, I feel really guilty now that I didn't get it checked out sooner. :-(

Re: =(

[macula_densa]

Don't feel bad. It often isn't caught, so it's good you even worked him up. We had a case on CPS of a cat that was sedated for something completely unrelated and ended up dying. Reason? He had HCM. Nobody knew until the necropsy. In CPS WE act as the clinicians, so it was a complete shock to the poor girl that did the sedation, and she was beating herself up tremendously (never mind it was also her birthday). But, without any suspicion, there was no way she could have known.

It's unpredictable what will happen with Fergal, but yes, remaining subclinical is still a possibility. Regardless, it's very good that you're aware of it so a)it can be treated now and b)nothing will happen like the above incident.

[seeinginmenow]

Poor Fergal--I hope that he stays healthy--and at least you know so you can take care of him!

[sonya_08]

really sorry to hear about your kitty!
I wandered over hear from auraolaura's page and added you. Hope that's ok with you! (When it comes to vet student's journals, I say the more the merrier!)