Is anyone here familiar with a possible genetic condition in cats

[ComerPerro]

That would cause them to die after about 2 years?

(I reposted this from the Lounge, thought I might get better responses here)

The post is long, and for that I apologize. I am just really stunned and confused about this, and am wanting to see if anyone else is familiar with this or has experienced it.

here's a link to the thread - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x4272804

And here's the body of the post.

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In June 2003, my parents got two black kittens from the same litter, in order to take the place of my cat Oliver, who I would be taking with me when I moved out. They got a male and a female, who they named Link and Naobi, respectively (our cousin has a black cat named Neo, we decided to do Matrix names too, and didn't want it to be a main character like Morpheus or Trinity).

The cats were healthy and active, and very quickly became part of the family. Both of them were of good size, and the Link was actally about 16 to 18 pounds. Big frame, but he also had a bit of a gut.

They lived pretty normal lives, but about a month and a half ago Naobi started acting more tired than usual. My parents were getting quite concerned (especially my dad, since she tended to favor men for some reason) and my dad, having worked in pharmecutical environments for many years and even for one that produced veteranary medicines, started doing a lot of research on her symptoms (which was really only fatigue, no physical signs) to see what he could find out.

One evening, though, Dad went downstairs to check on her, as he had been doing regularly for the past few days, and found that she had died in my old room. She had been laying under the bed, and apparently crawled out just before she died.

He took her body to the vet immediately, and the vet couldn't find anything wrong with her either.


We chalked it up to a sad episode and an unnecessary end to the life of a good cat. And my parents still had the Link, a dog, and my cat Oliver (my new place doesn't allow pets).

Everything was fine from then until now, occasionally Link would look for Naobi but otherwise he seemed ok.

Link had this game where he would fetch toy mice. Dad would throw them, Link would run after them, and bring them back to Dad in his mouth, just like a dog with a ball. He would do this for an hour sometimes, continually. And, whenever Link wanted to play, he would grab a mouse, bring it to Dad, and set it on his foot.

Within the past few days, he started slowing down some, started losing interest in the mouse game, but not by much. Then it got worse two days ago. Monday evening, Mom and Dad noticed that Link was laying around and sleeping alot. He usually sleeps very rarely, he was a very unusual cat. In fact, he was more like a dog than a cat.

Dad decided Monday that he would take link to the vet Tuesday when he got home from work, because he wanted to catch this trouble right away, didn't want to mess around.

But when Dad got home, he found that Link had died. He was laying on the floor in the basement, on the carpet, near the table that he and Naobi always used to sit on and watch people from. They buried him in the back yard, and my dad was telling me last night that he had to go through the house and get rid of all the toy mice (Link must have had 25 of them, at least) because finding them and seeing them was just painful. He is keeping one or two, which were Links favorites, but he just couldn't bear to all the mice in the house.





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Sorry about that, I wrote more than I inteded to and got myself distracted from the question.

What I am wanting to know is: are there any genetic defects or conditions that might cause a cat to live a healthy life and then just suddenly die without much warning at all?

Having Naobi die was bad enough, but then to have Link die just a month and a half later was just shocking.

And I am really at a loss, wondering what may have caused it.



Thanks for any imput.

[Lorien]

1. Yes. Cardiomyopathy; there's another thread about it here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=243x11641

I posted a bit more about the disease in the second post.

So sorry about your parent's loss. :hug:

[ComerPerro]

2. Yeah but they didn't really show the same symptoms. Although...

I googled

http://www.vetinfo.com/ccardio.html#Cardiomyopathy%20in%20young%20cat


Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is now the more common form of this condition in cats. It can occur for several reasons, including hyperthyroidism, toxins, infections and genetic influences. In this disorder, the heart muscle loses elasticity and becomes thicker, making it hard for the heart to function properly. There are many apparent variations in the course of this disease in cats. At the present time, a clear understanding of the mechanism of the disease is not understood in most cases.

The symptoms of this problem are similar, despite variations in why they occur. Affected cats may exhibit difficulty breathing, rapid respiratory rate, weight loss or poor condition, loss of appetite, tire easily with exercise or show signs of weakness or paralysis of the rear legs. Despite the chronic nature of the disease itself, cats often appear to develop symptoms quite suddenly, especially difficulty breathing and rear leg weakness.



So, I hilighted the ones that our cats had.

And, maybe that could be it.

Thanks for the info.

Its just that the symptoms are so vague.

I always thought being a vet would be extremely difficult, since animals have to be much harder to diagnose than humans...

[Lorien]

3. I know of two cases where entire litters were lost to HCM

around the same age as your parents cats. They were purebred Turkish Angoras (my Peewee was half Turk). One died undiagnosed, but when the second died the owner had an autopsy done and it was found to be HCM (Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy).Neither showed any symptoms prior to death, they claim. The breeder called the owners of the other kittens and asked them to have them tested. They didn't, and the other cats died within months of one another. It's an awful disease, and from what I understand it can only be diagnosed by a specialist after the age of two-which makes catching it tricky.

[ComerPerro]

4. Only diagnosed by a specialist after age 2? Wow.

The cats didn't stand a chance.

A lot of the information has been scary and comforting, at the same time.

Scary that cats can just die like that, without warning. Scary to know that not many pet owners may know about this disease.

But it comforts me to know that Oliver and the god (Mac) won't suffer the same fate.

Oliver is eight years old, so he probably would have shown symptoms by now.

[Lorien]

5. Yes, usually they don't make it past age 5

my Peewee lived with a very mild form of it until age 15, but then his hyperthyroid disease caused it to become unmanageable (and he couldn't have surgery for the hyperthyroid because his kidneys weren't strong enough). :-(

I've been criticized for owning two purebred cats, but the HCM was such an awful thing to have gone through with Peewee that when I went to chose new kittens as companions for my remaining cat, they came with a pedigree that didn't include any relatives that had died from that awful disease!

[kestrel91316]

6. Cardiomyopathy is the first thing that comes to mind here.........

very sad to lose a cat suddenly like that, and even worse to lose two. Most obscure genetic diseases cause a slow decline rather than sudden death. CM is far more common in males, especially large ones. If your female was also large, that's a risk factor. It would have been nice to have a blood panel and urinalysis, and chest xrays to look at to see if there was evidence of anything else going on..........but hindsight is 20-20.

We lost our hospital mascot at about age 14 to probably cardiomyopathy. He was a poorly regulated diabetic, with other problems, so his little cough and occasional vomiting (common in CM) were overlooked but they were probably an early sign. He collapsed without warning and passed away one morning after an uneventful breakfast.

If this was CM, there was probably not a thing you could have done. It's a fatal disease, and doesn't usually take too long to do it.