Heart Murmur in Sphynx Kitten

Hello Vets, I am adopting this Sphynx baby with a grade 3 heart murmur. It's now actually been downgraded closer to a 2 since his last vet appt a week ago. I'm wondering what the odds are that it will resolve itself as he grows and/or the life expectancy if it does not. I am adopting him only to give him a loving home with the time he has and with the awareness he will potentially need a lot of care and related expenses. I am prepared for that. I've been in contact with his current vet as well as my own vet l, but would very much appreciate all the info and advice I can get.

Hello!  Im afraid that I don't know the stats for this situation and nor do I fully know what the position is in your kitten's individual case.  A murmur is simply a noise -often caused by an abnormal flow of blood as it moved through the heart, but sometimes those noises are insignificant.  For example,  some littlies have murmurs caused by a hole in the heart that hasn't yet closed - and when the cat grows and the hole does close, the sound may no longer be heard and there might be no further concern.  For other cats, that hole might never close and over time, the abnormal flow of blood may cause abnormal changes to the heart, which the cat may have to live with.  Other murmurs can be caused by slightly leaky heart-valves, by not hav8ng enough red blood cells (anaemia) or by abnormal heart muscle.   MTC

The cause of the murmur is significant because that's what dictates the outcome.  Your vet will have their best guess as to what is causing the sound.  They will look at the breed and age, because some sorts are murmur are linked to certain lifestages etc.  As well as the severity of the sound of the murmur, they will have thought about the place on the chest where they hear it - whether it seems to be loudest on the left or right side, over which heart value.  They will also consider thr timing - whether it coincides with one set of valves closing, or another.   They can take bloods to see whether there is abnornal sttetch on the muscle fibres (pro-BNP).

Sometimes, your vet will want to do an ultrasound to find more about the cause of the murmur and your baby sounds lucky in that they will have owner support for this, so that your vet can get the maximum information that they want to know about the flow of blood in your cats' heart, in order to give the best treatment - if any is required.   Scanning is quite a specialist procedure and the expert doing it is usually a mine of useful information about the best timing of any interference.

Good questions for the vet and / or specialist include:  what does a murmur presenting like this in a sphynx cat of this age usually turn out to be?  What else could it be?  What is the best thing that you can do to help things along at home?  What is the long-term outlook and what further might be helpful?  - I will go and check what blog resources are available;  meanwhile, please do let us know how you get on.

Hello!  There are good blog resources available on this site if you search there, in particular an article called 'Can cats get heart failure' (heart failure and murmurs are obviously different things and either can occur with or without the other; the arrticle will help you to get a handle on that).   At the bottom of that article are some further links and one is to the International Cat Care site, an article called 'Heart Murmurs in Cats,' which looks very appropriate.    I hope that something there helps.