Why is my cat constantly sneezing
Why is your cat sneezing? Symptoms, diagnosing, and treating upper respiratory infections
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hi guys my name is dan i'm a
veterinarian and today
we're going to go over upper respiratory
infections in the kitty
we're going to go over three steps today
what the pet owner sees regarding
up respiratory infections at home what
i do to diagnose it at the veterinary
clinic and how we go about treating them
what the pet owner sees at home
is usually green discharge maybe from
the eyes
or from the nose or they see a lot of
sneezing or they hear a lot of sneezing
that is all
upper respiratory we're talking eyes
nose
you know anything outside of the chest
most
upper respiratory infections in the cat
are caused by a primary
viral infection with a secondary
bacterial infection
the viral infection can be transmitted
between cats and
large populations like at a shelter or
you know
maybe a big group housing situation or
you can also get them when it
is stressed when a cat gets stressed
some viruses can really
cause some problems i know how do cats
get stressed they live
amazing lives they just they just hang
out and do nothing all day
but cats get stressed really easily and
when a cat gets stressed
they can get a viral infection and
most cases viral infections are just a
clear discharge
bacterial infections get the color
discharge
the viral infection sets the framework
for the
secondary bacterial infection to set up
shop
and cause problems a lot of these
kitties tend to do pretty good still
they're eating and drinking and they're
relatively normal
with the exception of having an upper
respiratory infection
so when the pet owner rolls in i have
one look as well
i can see the same thing the pet owner
saw green discharge from the eyes
nasal discharge sneezing really mucousy
now if a veterinarian notices or hears
anything going on in the chest like a
pneumonia
they'll take an x-ray or if the kitty
cat's not doing well or they're
lethargic then they're probably some
blood work too
in some cases these upper respiratory
infections
can become more chronic or long-term in
those cases
if a veterinarian notices a pet owner
keeps coming back for the same problem
they will probably do some sort of
culture or pcr
to help diagnose what's causing the long
term
of a respiratory infection the good news
is
most up respiratory infections are
short term we get stressed or we're
exposed to something we treat it
and we get better now if it's just an up
respiratory infection
and the cat appears to be doing great on
the physical exam
this is pretty straightforward the
veterinarian may just do an antibiotic
now the antibiotics going to clean up
the secondary infection
but if you have a primary infection that
may linger for a little bit
so even though you get rid of the green
discharge
you may have some sneezing or clear
discharge
that kind of plays out for a little bit
of time
