Cat-lovers, Asthma and Mental Health

Almost always my patients who come to the clinic complaining of frequent intractable chronic cough, congestion and full blown asthma have cats in their houses. Despite my advice for them to remove the furry animals, many have refused to do so citing mutual attraction,love and not having the heart to let the animal go.

Cute  Cats but not for everyone

I have a patient, a man in his thirties, who have been coughing for many months and  TB screening were negative. He kept coming to the clinic and the doctors kept giving him antibiotics and cough mixtures and he was getting desperate as the cough really spoiled his sleep, making him tired and irritable. It did not help that he was working as a construction worker with all those dust surrounding him. One positive thing about him was that he was not a smoker.

One day he turned up with three of his children who had wheezy coughs for days on end and one of them was so bad that I had to order for  prompt nebulisation. Obviously this was one happy family of asthmatics! As usual I asked about whether there were cats in the house. Yes, there were, each child had got one cat each and they sleep with the creature and incidentally one of the children had got a couple of sores on the scalp that appeared to be infected bite by cat's fleas.

I informed the man about the association of wheezing in children and flying cat's danders and the possible effect on the lungs  causing allergic coughs that he had been suffering from but he appeared not to be convinced and even said something like God would help those who protect animals? So I firmly told him that there was no cure for allergy as long as the triggering factors are present in his home. It is a waste of time for him to keep coming to the clinic and receiving medications which has short-lived effectiveness.  The best solution is to identify and avoid those allergens.

I have also advised patients rearing cats on the danger of cat's  parasite called Toxoplasmosis gondii which affect the muscle and the nervous system and could cause long-term health problems especially during pregnancy but not many patients are convinced of this effect. The news article today is relating an association of self harm in people affected by the parasite. this research appears to confirm what has been known anecdotally for years now.

The effects of cat's parasite on the nervous system causing functional  breakdown is really frightening.