Potentially cor pulmonale or pulmonary hypertension could develop. The result of this is airway narrowing, increased airway resistance, decreased air-flow, air exchange, hypoxemia, exercise intolerance, dyspnea with an increased respiratory rate. It is the irreversibility of early changes at any stage along with the inherent progression that makes conclusive diagnosis and ongoing treatment so important.įrom a different perspective, coughing may be due to tracheobronchial irritation, mucus secretion, accumulation, and bronchoconstriction. Clients may bring their cat in because of post-tussive retching or gagging misinterpreted as vomiting. This patient may present in dyspnea with cyanosis rather than being brought in with a history of nocturnal wheezing or coughing. As the airways become obstructed, the air becomes trapped within the alveoli resulting in a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), with an abdominal thrust component to the respiratory pattern and, over time, resulting in a caudal displacement (or flattening) of the diaphragm. When the irritation is occurring mainly in the small airways that are less than 2 mm in diameter, rather than cough being the main clinical finding, an expiratory wheeze predominates. This mucus is extremely irritating, resulting in a self-perpetuating process. Morphologic changes occur in the tracheobronchial epithelium and wall, resulting in airway inflammation: mucosal edema and thickening, epithelial metaplasia and cellular infiltrates with an increased production of mucus. Persistent tracheobronchial irritation causes the chronic (>two months) cough that is easily elicitable on tracheal palpation, the hallmark of chronic bronchitis. Feline bronchial disease goes under a multitude of names reflecting the considerable heterogeneity in anatomic locations as well as etiologies that may be involved.

Nasal mucus plug