veterinary diagnosis - Animalaxy UK

A dry cough that sounds like a hairball may be feline lungworm

August 18, 2026 by Sophie Whitmore

I dosed my cat with hairball paste for eight months just to stop the dry coughing: the day the vet looked at a stool sampl...

A persistent dry cough that sounds like a hairball attempt but produces nothing can mask a dangerous parasitic infection. One owner spent eight months treating the wrong condition until a stool sample revealed the truth: lungworm picked up from an unsuspecting garden snack.

Cat limping after a jump: when an X-ray finds a pellet

August 1, 2026 by Sophie Whitmore

My cat came home limping and I blamed a bad jump: three weeks later, the X-ray showed what had been sitting in his muscle ...

A cat owner’s assumption about a garden wall jump masked something far more sinister: an airgun pellet lodged in muscle tissue. Vets across the UK regularly discover hidden metal projectiles, grass seeds, and foreign bodies in cats presenting with mysterious limps—often weeks or months after the initial injury when the skin has already healed over the wound.