heart disease and trachea collapse

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Hi,
just a quick question, is there any herbal remedies that can reduce my dogs coughing/retching during the night?
He is 13 years old, been recently diagnosed with a heart murmur, heart disease and trachea collapse.
He is on, vetmadin, frusomide, and cardalis. At his last check up, his murmur had gone, and his heart was strong.
Trouble is, he is fine during the day, only coughs when he gets excited, but in the early hours of the morning, he hacks and hacks.
For the past 2 nights he has awoken at 4 am and i have stayed up with him until he calms down, usually takes about an hour or a couple.
The vets say there is nothing else they can do for his cough, its just something we have to get used too.
Anybody found anything that helped their little one be more comfortable?

[Wylie's Mom]

I would ask for a simple prescription cough suppressant...has that been tried?

I wonder if the coughing is exacerbated by being dry at all....? If so, maybe a humidifier where he sleeps would help.

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unfortunately, they won't give him cough suppressants due to the fact that they won't xray him.
As he is old, has both conditions, its a tad risky putting him under sedation.
If it turned out, his heart was enlarged, he could be prescribed them, otherwise, the coughing will mask the fluid on his lungs if the heart isn't enlarged.

He is fine during the day, plays, sleeps, eats, etc etc, quite a spritely old thing really, and last night he only woke up once with a bout of coughing for around 15 mins.

I have also put him on a no salt diet, brown rice, potatoes, peas, carrots and chicken, (been on it about a week), can't say it's made any difference as of yet, but i will keep going with it, (and he loves it!)

Thanks for your response x

[mindy10]

They need to check his lungs to see if he has fluid on the lungs. If he does then he needs to be put on water pills and that might help the cough. My maltese had a bad englarged heart and would cough but the water pills did not help because the cough was due to the heart pressing on the trachea. Also he should be put on heart meds.

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He is already on heart and water meds, vetmadin and cardallis and water tabs are his furosimede as i said in my post.
Just wanted to know if anyone had tried anything herbal etc,
Thanks though

[mindy10]

I know when mine had it he also coughed when laying down because the heart presses on the trachea when they are laying down. I didnt give mine anything for the cough but he would only for for a few second though and he was gone. I am not sure if cough medicine would help in this case. I hope someone else can come on to help you

[lisaly]

It sounds like your little boy is already on excellent medication. Vet,edin can be a miracle drug.

My little girl was diagnosed with an enlarged heart when she was close to eleven. She lived for six more years. My vet said that Ashley's enlarged heart was due to her trachea, since an echocardiogram revealed her heart was mostly within normal limits. At one point her trachea became very irritated, and Ashley's cough was very scary. The only thing that helped it was hydrocodone.

My vet combines conventional Western medicine with Eastern medicine. Ashley mostly took conventional medicine, but at one point when she was sixteen, she was on a Chinese herbal formula devised by my vet. It is only available by prescription, however, and a vet needs to contact him with the condition. It really helped Ashley a great deal. Over the seventeen years I have gone to his practice, I met numerous people whose pets were helped by him, so I am a big believer in alternative medicine combined with conventional medicine. I hope you find something that helps your little boy.