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Coughing due to heart problems My 11 year old was diagnosed with heart problem last year. I just check my last yorkietalk post and it was also on april 2021. that’s when he was diagnosed. He started coughing badly, we did the xray which showed enlarged heart. He was put on some medications, which worked wonders until some time ago when he started coughing badly again. It is not like he coughs all the time, but still rather often. And it breaks my heart to see him like this. We have a vet appointment on Tuesday but until then, I’d like to know if anything like this happened to your yorkies with heart problems and how you or your vet dealt with it? |
I would try to get him to a vet before Tuesday. Coughing could be a sign that his heart condition is worsening. He might need medication adjustment or addition. Best wishes. |
Ranger had stage 3 heart murmur, and the vet cardiologist (and man, cardiologists are expensive...) put him on a fairly new drug, Pimobendan. It helped his heart a lot, and ultimately he ended up dying of something completely unrelated. |
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I hope the adjustments your vet made help out. |
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Yes, they are like babies. :) Actually, they ARE our babies. :love::love: I wonder if a humidifier might help him at night? |
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I use the days on air filter in the bedroom at night at it definitely purifies the air , I’m asthmatic so I feel it helps Lottie as well. |
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Please keep Teddy in your prayers. It is so heartbreaking to see him coughing so much. |
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This takes a little time. When Ranger took it, it got worse before it got better. Consistent dosage over about 8 days seems to have done it. Think of the heart like a muscle--you work it out, at first it gets weaker. But then it gets stronger. |
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Don't quit. Pimobendan took awhile. |
an update from Teddy and me. After Teddy kept getting worse and worse, coughing non stop and me not being able to sleep for the past week, I’ve decided to consult another vet, recommended by a work colleague. We went to see him today and now guess what. He did xray and ekg and said he didn’t see problems in Teddy’s heart. Maybe resolved on medication we’ve been taking. But that there was an infected mass in his chest area, pressing on his lungs and heart and hence causing coughing. All caused by an infected tooth. So we had the tooth removed. Teddy is still sedated after an operation, so he is coughing less. We will see what happens tomorrow after it wears off. Tomorrow we will start medication to treat the infection. The vet says normally in younger dogs, the infection (and associated coughing) could be resolved in 2-3 days, but since Teddy is 11, it will take more days as they are using milder medications. That’s okay for me. I just hope it works! It’s been killing me seeing him not being able to sleep because of coughing. |
Dental work is important. I learned that! Once Yorkies get heart problems, the vet is much more loath to put him under to do dental work. I think complications arising from Ranger's teeth and heart murmur would have got him soon after, if the kidneys had not got him first. Ranger had a serious aggression problem when it came to anybody touching his teeth, so brushing them was out. |
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And thank you for your update. |
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WHAT!??!? All the meds that were prescribed (especially Sildenafil)...by whom? Surely a specialist would not be doing that without so much as an echo being done. If a general vet was doing that without proper testing, I am quite floored. And a mass in the chest due to a tooth? Never heard of such a thing...goodness. What tests were done prior and then today? I am SO happy he is ok. crazy..... I guess I assumed you were seeing a specialist. Continued good wishes for Teddy. |
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Just a little FYI....over the years I have seen so many small dogs misdiagnosed with heart disease based on a vet reading an xray saying the heart was enlarged. These small dogs' rads often look like that .. it is always best to get a second opinion and in my humble opinion, that of a boarded specialist/cardiologist. Again, hoping the best for Teddy. |
Sometimes as a diagnostic, if a medicine will not do any harm, they can prescribe a med and see if the dog responds to it. if he does, that isolates the problem. With sildenafil, a positive response would indicate a circulation problem. If the possible circulation problem could be life-threatening if not treated early, it's possible to go ahead and prescribe the sildenafil and then go ahead with the lab work as well. If it turns out he does not respond to the sildenafil, we know the side effects are not that bad (unless it lasts for more than 6 hours....). |
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I would never go to a vet who used meds to diagnose my pup. ALL meds have side effects....not to mention the fact a pup could die while they were playing around using meds to diagnose something that maybe could have been treated correctly from the start. In Teddy's case.......treating with cardiac meds when he needed an antibiotic????? Seems a bit off to me. BUT, I don't know what diagnostics the vet offered / or didn't offer to do in the first place...or was or was not permitted to do. IE: was blood work done? Who knows. |
Sildenafil would not kill a pet if they had an infection (older men are aware of what sildenafil's side effects are). Not detecting the infection, however, would. But at least we would know if sildenafil didn't help, that it might be an infection (i.e. it would certainly never directly indicate an infection, but it would contraindicate a circulation problem, and that it has to be something else). Hindsight is always 20/20--we always know exactly the right diagnostic for a problem once we know what the problem is. |
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