[JLacerda]

My new kitten has been diagnosed with a Persistant Right Aortic Arch. Surgery is very expensive and I was wondering if any others had a kitten with this problem and what they did.

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[Kicol]

Sorry I don't have any advice on this. What is the vet's advice, has he given you any options other than surgery? Sending good wishes your way.

[JLacerda]

Our vet, and the others we have called since, say the only thing to do is surgery. Since then I have been feeding the kitten less food, more frequently throughout the day and he hasn't been throwing up. It seems to be working but I don't know if he is getting enough nutrience to grow normally.

I'm just wondering if others have cats/kittens with this disease and how they handle the day to day if they opted out of surgery.

Thank you so much for your kind wishes, Kicol!

[Joy]

I don't know of the disease so can't give any input, but wish your little one all the best

[Sherin]

I have not heard of this before so I cannot possibly advise. Sending best wishes and support your way.

[Heather Sharada]

My daughter has a Boxer dog with this problem.....she is doing well without surgery by feeding her small meals often and also by getting her to eat from an elevated plate so she does not constrict her throat/oesophagus when eating. She is holding condition after 2 years although initially she had been doing very poorly.

I can't begin to advise on your kitten though as I am not a vet and have no knowledge of this condition in cats. Hope you can manage her and help her gain nutrition while you save for the surgery....perhaps you could hand feed her to keep her head in the right position and feed her something like Nutrigel and /or Nutridrops to increase nutritional content of her meals......there are also high nutrition canned foods available from Vets....just trying to think of ways to get the nutrition into her.

[♥Brooke♥]

I have a senior cat with this living at my parents house because of his age and the fact he had recently had surgery due to crystal blockages, another concern was his age and the risks assosiated with the surgery at that age so myself and my parents decided against the surgery and with support of the vet they visit they are managing at home, which is really difficult at times.

He requires a lot of care to manage it. We have to feed him from our hands to make sure he is elevated to the right degree and we have to monitor everything he eats, as well as every time he throws up, which he still does no matter how careful we are.

We use a little book to monitor this and every time we go to the vet we produce it for him and the vet checks in on the cat weekly to ensure everything is going smoothly. We also have to monitor weight weekly, and water intake at all times.

He has some dry biscuits every 30 minutes to every hour, to make sure he constantly has food in him. He also has Nutridrops every night and he uses a hanging bottle for his water, as it seemed to work out a little bit easier for him and we can measure the exact amount of water he has consumed during the day.

The best thing to do would be to talk to your vet though and discuss the surgery/payment and see if they will bill you for it so you can pay it off or alternative methods of managing it until you can afford the surgery as I really can't see a kitten going 16 or so years having to do it the way we manage it with our senior cat.

[JLacerda]

Thank you all for your support and suggestions! Olive is doing good so far and is even running around and playing with his brother (which he was not doing when we got him). I'm hoping to take him to the vet next week to discuss how to proceed.

The surgeon won't do a payment plan for the surgery and that same surgeon is a specialist that all the vets in the area use. So I'm trying to call a local vet. university to see if they could do the surgery for less. Wish me luck!

Thanks again for all your comments. I've never been on a discuss board before and you all have been so helpful!