Thread: HCM gene testing- are we wasting our time?

Originally Posted by Catlover

I'm really sorry to hear about your cat which died through HCM- I only hope that Sylvester's murmur does not worsen (my boss suggested I put him on beta blockers early, but he is only drawing from experience with humans.... but then it seems like this is all the information we have).

Though his passing was of course very sad, we did manage to give him almost four years of great and actually quite healthy life. Every time I think about his last few hours, though, it is very hard not to get upset. If we had known that nothing would work and how much he would suffer we would have had him put down immediately, but we and the vets assumed he could be pulled through the incident (which came quite out of the blue, with no warning signs). Some cats with HCM just pass suddenly and with little/no pain. Others, though, go into CHF or throw clots and suffer greatly at the end.

At various points and in various combinations, Karma was on diuretic, beta-blocker, and calcium channel blocker. We eventually reduced him to just the calcium channel blocker, as that was what seemed to make him feel best. Beta-blocker definitely reduced his energy levels. As far as I know, though, best practice for vet cardiologists in US is still not to do any treatment at all on unsymptomatic cats as they do not believe any treatments slow progression or prolong life. We are still planning on having our hetero girl Allie echoed at least every two years so that we know the condition of her heart and thus might have better warning about any symptoms that develop. In a sense, though, it is pointless as nothing would be done based just on the echo results.

As already stated, some murmurs could be quite benign and some could indicate a serious problem. The only way to know for certain is to have an echocardiogram done by what in the US is called a "board certified veterinary cardiologist." Not sure what analog would be in UK. In the US vet cardiologists can be hard to find unless you live in a very big city. Our experience with even "radiologist specialist vets" has not been good, and I would never recommend spending the money with such a vet. I would probably give it a while and see what happens on vet next visit. Certainly not all murmurs are HCM and not all HCM cats even have murmurs.