Unexpected death/heartworms?

Question
In cats what are the causes and signs of heart worms?
Are heart worms the same as worms found in the cats feaces?
can heart worms occur due to a cat not being neutered?

All these questions are for my 3 year pet male traditional siamese cat who unexpectedly passed away last week. He was an active cat and seemed healthy and he was not neutered so he went outdoors everyday.

Answer
Hi Maddy,

I'm sorry to hear about your loss.  Did you take your cat to the vet?  The vet should be able to do testing to tell you what the cause was.

1) Please see the following informative article regarding causes, prevention, and symptoms of heartworms in cats.  There are several wonderful sources on the internet.
http://www.ehow.com/about_4672096_symptoms-heartworms-cats.html

2) No, heartworms are NOT the same as worms/parasites in the cats' feces.  Heartworms are transmitted by mosquitoes and only found in the right side of the heart and/or the pulmonary arteries; intestinal parasites such as hookworms, roundworms, tapeworms, etc. are found in the digestive tract and/or the feces.

3) No, heartworms occur because an infected mosquito lands and your cat and passes the larvae into the blood.

I'm a little confused.  You said he was NOT neutered so he went outside every day?  For future reference, animals should always be altered for the health and behavioral benefits.  Beyond that, if he was NOT neutered, he should've been indoors only so that he could not go out and propagate and contribute to the pet overpopulation problem.

I could go through a whole slew of possibilities, but ultimately an exam by a vet and possibly testing is going to be your best course of action for determining why he died.  How and where did you find him?  Was he bleeding, cut, or have any visible injuries?  I'm not sure how to help with that other than to have a vet exam him.  

Please let me know if you are thinking of getting another cat so I can go through with you all of the proper precautions to take to try to prevent this from happening again.  It could've been a genetic disorder, a disease he got from being outside and exposed to other unvaccinated cats, a parasitic infection leaching all of the nutrients from his body, a nutritional deficiency, an autoimmune problem, a virus, poisoning, anemia from a flea infestation, or even heartworms if he wasn't on regular preventative and going outside. Even to that end, if he goes outside and you are not monitoring his elimination habits, he could've had a urinary blockage/plug that blocked his urethra, preventing his kidneys from eliminating toxins in his body which would build up and kill him.  This almost just happened to my spouse's cat, but since he is only indoors, we were able to detect his abnormal behavior early enough that we got him to a vet and unplugged before the level of toxins killed him.  There are so many reasons to not let a cat go outside.  Statistically, they will die from any of these scenarios or being hit by a car, a dog attack, abusive kids, etc. by the time they're 4 years old.  Please read, I am not trying to scold, but educate to help prevent you having to go through anything like this in the future.

I'm truly sorry for your loss.  Please email me for more questions or recommendations for helping you to figure out what things to change in the future.  If you want a definitive answer, I would definitely take him to a vet asap. Good luck.

Best regards,