In article . com,
"Katz" wrote:

Between this group & another cat group I belong to, the stories of how
cats hide their illnesses were getting to me. I have personal
experience with this, too, with Bonnie (RB). Daisy acts fine, eats
fine, her weight is fine. But almost all of her behaviors have changed
in the last few months. So I made an appointment that took 10 days to
get b/c I wanted the partner who is aggressive & a good diagnostician,
& I wanted an evening appointment.

We went tonight. As he was looking at & feeling her, he was saying
everything seemed fine. Then he got out the stethoscope. Hhe listened
to her heart for a v-e-r-y long time. This of course made me nervous.
Hhe ended up saying that she has an irregular heart rhythm (not a
murmur). He said that cats can have this & it often is not a problem.
But of course she's never had it before. The result was that he took
blood & we scheduled an EKG for Tuesday. He'll call me w/her blood
results Friday AM at work.

So Daisy, Miss Moxie & I would appreciate a group purr that all her
tests turn out OK, & that having an EKG is not too horrible for her.
She'll have to be in all day Tuesday while I'm at work. Has anybody
else's cat had an EKG?

Thanks,

Katz


I was with Clifford (RB) when he had cardiac ultrasonography, and, IIRC,
there was a 2-lead EKG running. You normally want some EKG information
when doing echocardiography.

It occurs to me I don't know how complex a EKG you could do on a cat.
The human standard (not simpler telemetry) is "12-lead", which actually
use 9 or 10 wires -- some of the "leads" are combinations. You
certainly couldn't get standard EKG electrodes onto a cat's chest for
the 6 frontal positions -- they would be larger than the cat!

My guess is that somewhere between 3 and 5 spots have to be shaved.
That's probabky the unpleasant part, as well as lying still for the
minute or so of the actual measurement.