Heart Disease, when is it time to say enough?

[MissFoodie]

I posted a thread about a month ago as my 8 yo was diagnosed with Cardyomiopathy.
He has been fine on the meds since, perfect breathing, then new years eve he deteriorated. Seemed ok in himself, was hungry, but increased breathing rate to 35 pm.
By last night it hadn't improved so called vet who advised to increase diuretic.
By this morning no improvement and definitely sounded chesty, gave him another dose and now, couple of hours later he has peed and doesnt sound as chesty....
My question is, is this a vicious cycle that's going to keep occurring and at what point do you say enough and take the awful step of having them put down?
I keep thinking I should as I don't want him to suffer but then he perks up and seems hungry and ok and I think I should continue.....

Do you think he enjoys his life?

Poor you. My take would be to do what seems fairest to you. Its such a fine line sometimes.

It might be that you come to manage it more comfortably when you see signs quickly amd know how to act quickly to keep amy episodes to a minimum impact. This is still new to you at the moment. Have a chat with your vet about how realistic it is to expect to be able to manage this to a good level for both dcat and yourself.

What is his breathing rate now? Still 35 pm?

My instinct is that he's only recently diagnosed and at that stage with my cat we were still seeing the vet frequently and titrating his dose. But you know him best and whether he's poorly but ok in himself, or suffering. Once you get the right dose he should be stable for some time, there shouldn't be regular relapses. It's more likely that one day in the future he'll stop responding to the drugs and that would be the time to say goodbye.

Thanks all - I spoke to the vet and we concluded that the reason for the relapse was a trip to the hospital on Friday for a check up and blood test, he gets very stressed and now wets himself in the car.
The stress of the journey/visit raised his rate for a period of a couple if hours and this caused the fluid to build up again as he is on the minimum dose of diuretic.
I said that there was no point in taking him in if all they were going to do was up the dose, especially since he has been hungry and jumping onto kitchen surfaces!
The vet agreed and we have increased the dose to 3 times a day so should be a lot better bu tomorrow, already just today after 2 doses he doesn't sound chesty, so, going to give it another 12 hours and see.
He was due to go back fora repeat blood test tomorrow as there was a problem with the samples (mix up) but they have said that they can come to home to do it, so that will be a lot less stressful for him.