Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:
My 3-year-old cat, Paul, recently had a sneezing fit and a few days afterwards I noticed that no sound was coming out when he meowed. This has been going on for about a week now. Otherwise, he is behaving like he normally would, eating, going outside, cuddling and napping. Occasionally he will sneeze, but not repeatedly like the sneezing fit. What’s wrong with my “lion without his roar?”
~ Tanya
Siouxsie: Well, Tanya, you might be surprised to know that cats can get laryngitis.
Thomas: Laryngitis is a swelling of the mucus membranes of the throat and voice box.
Bella: It can come from overuse of the voice, just like humans who spend hours screaming their heads off at a rock concert can barely talk the next day.
Siouxsie: Or it can be caused by coughing, which irritates the throat.
Thomas: Upper respiratory infections can cause laryngitis, too.
Bella: If a cat gets a foreign object like a grass seed or something similar stuck in the back of their throat or their sinuses, this can cause swelling and hoarseness, too.
Siouxsie: We’d recommend that you have a vet check him out and make sure he doesn’t have any swelling or other signs of illness, particularly since you said that Paul’s laryngitis developed after he had a sneezing fit.
Thomas: Of course, Paul could be giving you the “silent meow,” too. The silent meow is when a cat’s mouth is open like a meow but no sound comes out.
Bella: Some hypothesize that a cat is making a sound when he gives the silent meow, but it’s so quiet or at such a high pitch that humans can’t hear it.
Siouxsie: Of course, the silent meow is just about the most endearing thing a cat can do: it’s a great tool to make humans melt from the cuteness … and of course, give us whatever we want as a result!
Thomas: Cats don’t do silent meows all that often, so if, as seems to be the case, your cat is doing nothing but silent meows, it’s worth a trip to the vet to make sure he doesn’t have any infections and doesn’t have anything stuck in his throat.
Bella: Please let us know if Paul gets his roar back. We’d love to get an update on him!
JaneA Kelley is a punk rock cat mom and award-winning blogger. She is a regular columnist for Catster Magazine, and she and the Paws and Effect Gang share a home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
My Alex occasionally looses his meow, sometimes half way through telling me something and other times he can start off silent then all of a sudden, he’ll have his voice back !! like me, when i have a cold (its rather amusing sometimes!!) the doctor-lady said not to worry as his throat wasn’t swollen so it was probably his vocal chords maturing at a different rate to the rest of him.. (though she worded it a lot better!! lol)
i would take Paul to the doctors though, just to be sure :D -cant be too careful with our babies can we :D
Jen x
so this post makes me think of my kitty Ziggy..he has never meowed..instead he squeeks..I have named him Jiggy squeeker,, nicknamed squeeky..can you wise kitties tell me why a kitty might squeek instead of meowing?
Hi Cindi, I don’t know how old Ziggy is, so this may not be relevant but maybe it will help. My cat Zorro had a squeaky meow when he was a small kitten, but as he became an adult cat he squeaked less. He now meows like most cats but occasionally he still has a tendency to squeak Maybe it’s just what your kitty does..
I have a 12 year old female who used to have a high pitched cry but now her voice is very gravely.
Because she’s my little paranoid kitty I don’t get to observe her a lot but when I took her to the vet last week for a steroid shot she did a lot of talking in the carrier. The staff was somewhat dumbfounded and thought she was possessed (“Round Robin, Round Robin…” ) They said it was the
strangest cat talk they’d ever heard. I wonder if there is something going on with her voice box. Has anyone ever heard of this?
I had a Siamese whose voice was very low-pitched. I called her my “Basso Profundo Siamese”. Turns out she had a paralyzed vocal cord – Laryngeal Paralysis. She had many other medical problems too. This caused her to choke on her food sometimes and to cough. Sadly, we lost her last year to an extremely nasty respiratory infection.
I have a 30 month old simiese kitten that squeaks and recently started sneezing wet sneezing did your cat show similar symptoms please let me know we rescued this kitten and we take every measures to nurse it back to health from near death now this sneezing please I can’t lose this battle.