Is an echocardiogram necessary for my cat with CHF?
Looking for advice for my CHF kitty.
I just want to know if the $900 echo is worth it on top of the X-rays we did. Have any of you gotten a better prognosis going the echo route with your late stage CHM kitty?
She was diagnosed with moderate heart failure 1 1/2 years ago via echocardiogram and she’s been on medication twice daily since.
Yesterday we took her to the vet because her breathing rate had increased to 70 and during that time we got an xray where the vet explained her heart was much larger and considered late stage heart failure. Vets recommendation was to increase her furosemide to 3x a day. Besides breathing rate being higher (much better today) she’s got a good amount of energy, she doesn’t cough, she’s eating and drinking normally.
Should we get an echocardiogram to get a cardiologist opinion? (Vets stress her out considerably and she would have to be sedated).
Or do we just keep her as comfortable as possible and continue what we’re doing?