Speaker 1: Love Babe.
Speaker 2: This is pet Life Radio.
Speaker 3: Let's Talk pets.
Speaker 1: Hello, cat lovers, Welcome to catatun I'm your show host
Michelle Burne and I have a great show be today
because it deals with the health of our cats, and
what's more important than that. So stay tuned and we'll
be right back.
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Speaker 4: Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome doctor Heather Davis.
She is a DVM and she is the director of
Clinical Affairs and Veterinary Services for Pegasus. And Pegasus is
a company that is under PBI Gordon which they're the
maker of lots of wonderful medications for your cats. So
welcome doctor Heather to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Michelle for such a warm welcome. I'm looking
forward to talking with you today.
Speaker 1: So we talked about a bit about your company, but
we're really going to focus on something that is pretty common,
more common than you would think, in cats, and that's
HCM hypertrophic cardiomipathy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good, hypert it's a mouthful, I know. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Unfortunately,
you're right, affects a lot of cats. About one in
seven cats has the disease. And what's really been kind
of said and frustrating for veterinarians is this disease is
known as the silent killer in you know, our feline patients,
and it's because the cats don't present with anything wrong
with them until the disease is so far progressed that
the cats are actually having pretty serious side effects and
so getting the cat seen and looked at early on
is so important.
Speaker 1: Okay, what would you say as to why this is
so common in cats, more common than we would imagine.
Speaker 3: So that's a and there's a couple of different factors
the disease process. In some of the breeds like rag
dolls and sphinx and main coon. We know that there
is a genetic link to the disease process. But we
also know that there's other populations of our feline kitties
that something is wrong with their heart muscle, and so
that heart muscle tends to just start working in a
really kind of abnormal way. It works too hard, actually,
and the muscle itself gets pretty stiff and enlarges. And
when it does that, it causes the left side of
the heart, the muscle to get thicker. And then when
it gets thicker, it takes up space in the left ventricle,
and so it decreases the heart's ability to fill and
then ultimately pump blood out to the rest of the
cat's body.
Speaker 1: Okay, and of course it's heart disease for people. You
think of heart disease, and yes, there's certain physical, you know,
features to your body and genetics, but stress and I
wouldn't associate heart disease with cats because I mean, they're
the most chill creatures around, right, They sleep like eighteen
hours a day and they're pretty mallow. So you think
of heart disease and go, whoa, But it's genetic, So
would you say it's more genetic than not?
Speaker 3: We do know right now, as you know, medicine is
always evolving, right, and so what we've been able to
tell in those specific breeds there's a genetic component to it,
and we're in the process of identifying it better so
that we can diagnose it in these cats as far
as that genetic component a little bit easier and faster,
But in the rest of the population it can be
an abnormality of this the heart muscle itself. And you're
right is the fact is that because you know kitties,
they sleep all day, or they're more relaxed, or they
hide away, and it's harder for them, the pet parents
to detect if there is something wrong with their kitties,
which makes it even more complicated with this disease process.
Speaker 1: Okay, thanks, and you hit on something else and we
talk about this. I've talked about this pretty frequently on Catitude,
but it's it's one of those things you can not
tell cat parents enough. Cats are stoic creatures. I experienced
this with Dennis when he had crystals in his urine,
very different to what we're talking about here, but I
didn't know how bad off he was until he started
to make this like a like an owl like sound,
like not like a meal, Like, how can I like
blown around? It was a weird sound. So he rained,
but one place wanted to put him down and I said, no,
we're not doing that, and so I went to the vet.
It was like Saturday after or Sunday afternoon or something,
and so then I went to the vet Monday and
he had to have surgery this whole thing, but I
wasn't even aware. So what is your view on that?
Because it's really hard to tell when our cats aren't
doing well. So what do you use as to pet
parents Because a lot of times you're like, yeah, they're fine,
they don't nip to go the doctor. You know, it's
a seed to that.
Speaker 3: So one of the easiest things that a pet parent
can do is well their kitty is sleeping, is to
count the number of breasts that their kitty is taking
and to time it. And what we're looking for is
a normal a cat should breathe while they're sleeping thirty times.
Let anything less than thirty is a normal resting breath rate.
And if they do that, then they can kind of
track whether or not it's abnormal. So if you're a
kitty is sleeping and you count the number of breasts
they take in a minute, and if it's greater than thirty,
then they should definitely take their kiddy into the vat
and get it looked at. That's something that we have
learned over the last few years is HCM has become
more popular as far as getting the genetic tests and
finding what diagnostics will help confirm the disease. But what
the pet parent really can do is count the breasts
while they're sleeping and keep track of it, because those
are good indications that there might be something going on.
Speaker 1: That is fantastic stick information. I've never heard that a
bread test to check their heart. So do you find
in your experience that there's challenges out there because there's
so much information with the Internet, and then there's talimed,
which this is nothing against talamed, but there's so many
opportunities for pet parents to get wrong information.
Speaker 3: So do you do?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you see these all the time? I would
find it if I was a veterinarian pretty discouraging, just
because people would come in and self Like people self
diagnose themselves. They're probably doing that for their cats.
Speaker 3: Right, So sometimes I feel like my work associate is
doctor Google, and I think that that we have to
be very careful with that and with this particular disease.
If a pet parent were to say, notice that their
cat was breathing greater than thirty breasts per minute, the
best thing they can do is go into the veterinary
And we can't stress that enough because that veterinarian. One
of the other steps that the veterinarian needs to take
in or to be able to diagnose it, is to
listen to the kitty's heart. Kitties, like you said, you know,
are they're very stoic and they're quiet. They're also very
variable when they go places as far as what kind
of physical exam findings that they will have, and so
you really want to get them into the clinic to
allow that veterinarian to do a couple of things. Number One,
listen to their heart, and they're going to listen to
see if there's a heart murmur. This particular disease has
a particular murmur that's very very common that a veterinarian
can hear, and so you want to be able to
hear it. But also the veterinarian needs to get some
blood work, and that way, there's a lot of things
that can be checked off the list. I'm sure when
your kitty was sick they ran blood work on it
as well, just to double check it. And so getting
into the clinic to allow a veterinarian to really do
a very thorough physical exam, to be able to you know,
start working through some of the diagnostics is important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it seems so. So what happens to you know,
what can the parent expect if they did the bread test,
they took their pat too the terinarian and they unfortunately
get the diagnosis that their cat has HCM. Is it treatable? Livable?
Is it like, oh, it's It's not the end of
the world, right, Hopefully their cat can be treated. Do
they need surgery?
Speaker 3: So I think right now it is so important, especially
with the breath tests, knowing about it and advocating for it.
Is getting the cats into the veterinarian as early as
possible in this disease process. That way, when the veterinarian
the cat cut does come in, they can start, you know,
they can get blood work and evaluate the overall body
system of the cat. This particular diagnosis sometimes is not
super straightforward, and so they have to Veterinarians will have
to rule out other causes that can you know, almost
act like this disease, and so working through those different diagnostics,
you know, getting the blood work, taking a chest X ray. Ultimately,
you know, depending on how it is presenting, getting an echocardiogram,
which is an ultrasound to the heart is the definitive
way to be able to diagnose it. And if you've
diagnosed it early, then it allows the veterinarian to make
choices as far as medications that can help the cat
and hopefully you know, facilitate prolonging the disease process and
intervening there earlier. Unfortunately, you know, because the cats are
stoic and they're not going to probably relay those clinical
signs that there is a problem. What's been an issue
in veterinary medicine is that a pet parent will leave
for work one day and then when they come home,
then the kitty is really really sick and they don't
know why. So really getting in and having those screening
veterinary appointments where the doctor can get a baseline and
to get an idea and intervene early as key.
Speaker 1: Okay, good to Now we're going to take a short
break and we'll be right.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone. We're talking to doctor Heather about HCM,
which is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in cats, which is more common
than you would think, so doctor Heather, So let's say
we took our cat to that did the testing and
found out unfortunately the cat has HCM and it was
caught early enough. What should the pet parent expect to do?
Is it just treat with medicine. You usually got a
diagnosis about heart disease and it's shocking.
Speaker 3: So you're right, it is shocking. And up until recently,
there wasn't a treatment option for these kiddies. What was
available for treatment and were products that treated in the
kitties when they got more sick and the heart disease
became more aggressive and the kitties were more compromised. And
recently in the last few months that a product has
been improved that allows them a veterinarian an opportunity to
intervene earlier to be able to actually treat it or
manage the disease process. So that is, veterinary medicine is progressing.
But again, getting them in there to be screened early
on allows that opportunity for a product that is designed
to help manage the disease to have at time to
be active and not just rely on the disease progression
and then maintaining the animal's quality of life due to
a really sad disease.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Let's talk a little about how medication
is progressing inveterinary medicine. You mentioned that there was a
newer medication approved for HCM. You know, for people, there's
a lot of clinical testing trials and all of it.
How are clinical childs set up for cats? Just kind
of a basic because I'm curious.
Speaker 3: Sure, So, I think the first thing that pet parents
should know is that when a drug product says on
a carton or on a bottle that it's been approved
by the FDA, it means that that manufacturer has gone
through the same rigorous standards to prove both safety and
efficacy as a human drug does in order to get
FDA approval. And so some people think that, oh, I
bet you, animal drugs aren't held to the same standard
as say, big pharmaceutical or human pharmaceutical companies are held
to in order to make drugs for humans, and that's
not true. It's the same rigorous standards, and so companies
like the company I work for, we're held accountable to
buy the agency to make sure that the product that
we develop is not only going to work in the pets,
but it's going to be absorbed how as support to
be in order to treat and manage a disease, but
it's also going to be safe for use. And I
think that's very, very important for pet parents that when
you do have a sick animal like kitties that have
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and you're going to medicate them, you want
them to be on a product that you know is
going to be safe and will help them.
Speaker 1: Of course, what are your thoughts on alternative medicine for cats?
Speaker 3: So I think that alternative medicine you mean as far
as like laser therapy or acupuncture. Is that what you're asking?
Speaker 1: Yes, And I've had all kinds of things, herbs, smelling herbs,
even chocolate therapy for cats.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: I think it's a great question. And I think multimodal
therapy is always something as practitioners we should consider because
I say, kitties are very complex animals. There's a lot
of different things that you know, bringing all aspects of
treatment I think is important. What I do think though,
we have to keep in mind is sometimes those herbs
can interact with traditional medicine. And so if your pet
parent is administering an herb to a kitty for treatment,
for that multimodal therapy, it's so important to let your
veterinarian know that you are administering that because they can
do a search and make sure that there's not going
to be any interactions because even if it is an herb,
sometimes they can alter how other products are absorbed. And
so just letting them know, hey, this is part of
my at home treatment plan, so that the vets can
double check that it's not going to negatively impact a
traditional medicine.
Speaker 1: That's a great answer. And I was thinking of something
that's very popular these days is CBD oil for pets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think with CBD oil, as with anything,
we always have to be really careful because if products
that are not manufactured in facilities or that are compounded,
they're not held to the same standard as products that
are regulated by the FDA. You know drug companies like
the company I work for, Human drug for companies or
people that manufacture out of facilities that are regulated by
an agency. It means that that agency comes in and
regularly and they checked your work. They make sure that
there's nothing harmful that's in your product, that you have
tests that are in place that make sure that nothing
harmful is getting into the products that are being administered
to any of the animals. But also to make sure
that when you pick up a tablet or you pick
up an oil, that when you look at the label
and it says in each drop of oil or in
each tablet, there's this much product, be it a drug
or an oil, that there is actually that much product available.
Because you know, when your animal is sick, you want
to make sure that the medication, be it herbal supplements
or if it's a drugs, that it is that you
are administering the amount that is supposed to be there
and without being held to standards. It's just it's hard
for hard to say that that's that's true. And when
your pet is as a bad disease such as HCM,
you don't want to take that chance.
Speaker 1: Right misdiagnosed or miss calculating dosage. Yeah, exactly so with
the HCM. So let's say you know your cat's diagnosed.
It's not the end of the world. It was caught early,
your cat can go on medication. What is the life
of the cat after the diagnosis? I'm treated? So how
does the life change?
Speaker 3: I wish I had a better answer for you. Each
cat is dependent on itself as far as number one,
when in its disease process was it diagnosed. The earlier
you can catch it and intervene, the better, But that
how aggressively that disease progresses is each cat's own journey.
And unfortunately, now that we know what to look for
and we know what to be on on guard for
and what to evaluate, it will help us, as it
veterinary medicine, to be able to give you a better answer.
But unfortunately, right now all we can say is that
early intervention, early screening is one of the best things
that you can do as far as to hopefully slow
that progress. But that cat's own body is going to
determine the rate in which that disease gets.
Speaker 1: Worse, right, And no, two cats are like no.
Speaker 3: Two cats are like no.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, doctor Heather, what would you tell our listening
audience as far as how they should be proactive and
taking care of their cats, help and watching medications and
so forth.
Speaker 3: So I think in reference to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, what I
would recommend her listeners would be the next time your
kiddies asleep on your lap, is set a timer. Check
it's a sleeping breath rate, and what you want to
see is anything less than thirty. If it's over thirty.
The next morning is ring your veterinarian, give them a call,
let them know that you want to get them into
the office and have them screened and have a good
physical exam going on. And I think the other thing
that I would say is when your kiddies are sick
and if there is a problem, if it's heart disease
or not, is so important to be aware as far
as what you're giving them. Communicate with you or veterinarian.
If you're using multimodel therapy. But when you're buying products
and you're using it using products that are FDA approved
and come from manufacturers that are held to the standards
that are required in order to get drugs approved, is
really very very important for the safety and efficacy of
the product and your animal doctor.
Speaker 1: Heather, thank you so much. You've given us some great
information on HCM. So here's something I'd like to ask,
as you know you're practicing veterinarian, what are some of
your peeves when you are in the office. This is
your chance to vent that drive you crazy that pet
parents do.
Speaker 3: I guess the doctor google thing is probably I think
most veterinarians would probably answer that because we always brace
for impact when pet parents say that, but we know
it's the reality. Right. We live in a digital age
where everybody is googling, and I guess what I would
always say is, you know, if you're googling something and
you're trying to diagnose something on your own, you know
you want to make sure it's a reliable source, but
just don't go with the first thing that comes up
on that engine search. And if you have questions, take
them to your veterinarians. Yes, that we might cringe a
little bit when you say that, but I would much
rather you ask me the question then, or go on
your own and we can work through a problem together.
And I think across the board, most veterinarians would say
that is I'd rather you ask, but I do cringe
a little bit because it means that you've done probably
a lot of hard investigative work and I'm going to
have to probably change that narrative a little bit potentially.
But then there's other ones that come in with great sources.
So that's probably my biggest pet peeve is.
Speaker 1: That, okay, anything in particular other than that that pet
parents do that you're just like, oh geez, Because I
wonder from the veterinary point of view, if you ever
go and you know, see new patient or someone's coming
in and you're like, oh, I cannot believe this.
Speaker 3: So this is gonna sound funny. And this is probably
more relevant for dog owners because I don't think most
cat owners probably do this, but giving your dog a
bath and bringing it into the clinic wet and because
then I smell like your wet dog the rest of
the day, and so I know that's, like I said,
that's probably not relevant to your listening audience, but it's okay.
If your puppy is dirty and they've been playing, that
means that they're living a full life. And I would
much rather, you know, dust off some hair than be
wet and sticky and things like that. So that, like said,
that's probably not relevant to you.
Speaker 1: It's true, but it's kind of like you know, yes,
you want to take your shower yourself before you go
to the doctor because you're probably gonna wearing a paper nightgown.
Not the same for your doggie, so or just let
them be all right, but dog the Heather, I want
to thank you so much for coming on catching I'm
telling us about HCM.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much Michelle for having me. I very
much enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: Need too, and I learned a lot. I hope you
all enjoyed the show. I sure did. I want to
thank doctor Heather Davis for giving us such great information
about feline HCM. I'd also like to thank the listeners
of Catitude. Thank you so much for your loyalty all
these years. I greatly appreciate it. Thanks to my cat crew,
who I will be listening to your breath while you're
sleeping now to try the breath test. So thank you guys, Dennis,
Charlotte and Mollie for me in the great counts you are.
And of course thank you to my amazing producer for
doing such a great job. And making all the shows,
especially mine, so wonderful. Thank you Mark. You guys have
no idea what a great editor he is. He's fabulous,
so thank you so much for all your work. Mark,
and hey, remember lose the attitude, have tatitude.
Speaker 4: Let's talk pets every week on demand only on Petlifradio
dot com.
Speaker 3: Don't know
Speaker 6: A