Q.After my 12-year-old cat, Yoda, was diagnosed with asthma, my vet gave him steroid shots but they only made him miserable. I read your book and took him for acupuncture, which did not help. I tried giving him fish oil in his food, but he wouldn’t eat it. I feed him a good brand of grain-free food (the only one he will eat) and he still coughs. His coat looks good and shiny, and he sometimes has a little discharge from his eyes. Otherwise he looks okay. Sometime, he’ll go weeks without coughing, but last week he started coughing a couple times a day, usually when he’s relaxed, not when he’s playing. Your book mentions hydrocortisone, but isn’t that more for itchy skin? Is there anything I could give him to ease his coughing?

 

A.The hydrocortisone mentioned is naturally derived from soy, but it’s still classed as a drug and you would need to obtain it through a veterinarian. Like any cortisone, it can be used for almost any inflammatory or allergy based condition and has fewer side effects than the synthetic varieties. Asthma would be covered in this category and I have used it successfully many times for this problem; I would, however, stop using it if it didn’t give a positive response. I also like using BHI’s Asthma, sometimes in combination with their Cough and/or Bronchitis remedies. I have also had fairly good success using Seven Forest’s herbal Pinellia formula.