Expert: Jana Connell RVT, CVT - 2/12/2012

Question
QUESTION: I just lost my 3 year old baby girl. I had a family of Persians , the father, mother and 2 twins, a boy and a girl. The parents are 5 and the children 3, they were conceived and born in my house. We live in Pakistan and the vets here are not very professional.
My cats are generally healthy, annually vaccinated, de-wormed and de-flead every 3 months . They live indoors .
My youngest baby girl seemed to have caught a chill after I applied frontline. As it is still cold here, I kept them in a heated room until they dried. My baby girl was lethargic and not interested in food so I gave her brufen suspension for children, as that is what my vet has always given in the past. She was fine for 3 days but became dull again , I gave brufen again. Even though she was better for a few hours , the next morning she seemed a slow and when I picked her up and put her down she seemed unsteady on her feet.
I took her to the vet who started her on subcutaneous drips,125 ml, twice a day , plus antibiotic injections. He also gave her a potassium shot. As there are no pet hospitals here , I brought her home. I was giving her 20 ml of food paste using a dropper and antibiotics orally. The vet had diagnosed her with gastritis, even though she had not been vomiting and didn't have diarrhea . This treatment continued for 4 days. After 2 days her breathing became very laboured and she developed a wheeze. Her breathing became worse but the vet kept saying she is getting better, because she was able to jump off his table. She was never unsteady on her feet, even though she was not really moving, only got up to use litter tray. She had not passed stool for 4 days.
The morning she died , he said she is critical and gave her a cortisone injection , but that just prolonged her suffering and she died 6 hours later in my arms.
45 minuets before she died I had another vet look at her , he claimed her lungs have collapsed and she is breathing using her diaphragm only and is about to go. He tried , against hope, gave her another cortisone injection and a diuretic , which he believed should have been given earlier. Obviously it was too late as her eyes and tongue had already begun turning blue.
I am not coping at all well and desperately need answers , advice , anything please. I have three other babies , they seem quite down too, even though they are eating and demanding love. Do they need vaccinations or something, they are due for shots .

ANSWER: Ayesha,

You just sent me this question with a few follow-ups. If you are wanting one of the vets in here to answer you need to post it to their profiles.

Not once did you mention that you gave this cat Frontline to me. This is a very toxic nerve poison designed to kill fleas, but some cats are very sensitive to it. Persians are very touchy about certain drugs so it seems very possible that your girl had a very bad reaction to the Frontline.

You need to copy this question then post it in a question form to one of the Veterinarians in here. I think there are three that answer questions in here.

If not, then post it to the Ask-evet yahoo forum for Peter Knapp to answer.

Thank you and good luck.

Jana

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you so much for your reply. I know it is very difficult for you to give me an exact reason for what happened, as you never saw the patient. However, I do have a final question, if a cat has developed pneumonia, a perfectly healthy 3 year old, will incorrect treatment kill her? Like over dosage of subcutaneous drips, and too much force feeding. Vets here believe that the force feeding and drips stressed her system , the lungs became aspirated , which led to her lungs finally collapsing. These assumptions are only based on her condition as I have told them.
Another query is do my other 3 cats need to get earlier vaccinations, they are due in June. I do not want to stress them any further, it has already been 12 days and they seem fine .

Answer
Unfortunately Ayesha,any animal that is already compromised then is given too many fluids and force fed can certainly get and succumb to pneumonia.

It happens way too often actually do to overzealous fluid therapy when none or very little is needed.

I can't say yes or no to this being the case with your cat since I wasn't there but it can happen and sadly, it does.

Thanks again!