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I recently lost my beloved female Persian. She was a lovely Blue Cream. Her registered named was Goodness Gracious, but we just called her Lovey. While I loved her and enjoyed the life she shared with us, I will never have another cat of this breed.

The Persian Cat is a man made breed and because of this fact they have many health issues that can be difficult to deal with for the uninformed cat lover.

Due to their inbreeding, in order to obtain the desired look, the cats have an almost unbearable problem with their eyes. They have a continuous discharge from their tear ducts and most of the time the duct will actually become clogged requiring surgery.

Persians have issues with degenerative renal polycystitis and are plagued with other kidney problems.

When we finally lost her it was to a large tumor on her liver. Our vet said that this was not a surprise to him. Persians are very prone to these types of tumors. Unfortunately, Persians do not live as long as other breeds due to the multiple health issues they have developed.

Persians have another serious problem. This time it is with the nose. Our Lovey had the extremely small breed standard nose. She had to work twice as hard as other breeds just to get any air into her lungs. Giving her the intranasal vaccines was impossible. Our vet finally stopped all medications given through the nose. Any drops administered through her nose simply ran down into her mouth.

Our little Lovey also had an issue with her ears. I was worried about the increasing amount of small, hard, pea size tumors that had begun to show up in the ear canal. While I consider this to be another health issue for the breed, I was assured that these tumors were nothing to be concerned about. However, just before we lost her, these tumors had started to show up in other locations, especially around her nose and eyes.

We lost our little girl this past Memorial Day Weekend and it was very difficult. Now, I am extremely concerned about my other Persian, B.C. He was given to me by the breeder as a companion for Lovey. Since he did not measure up to the standards of this particular breeder, he was of no value to the woman. Which is another story entirely.

Blacky O'Kelly is a beautiful black male with all the same health issues our Lovey had and more. He is on cardiac medication for a grade 3 heart murmur and he has an enlarged heart chamber. We wake up everyday wondering if this is the day our beautiful B.C. will leave us!

Persians are one of the most beautiful breed in the cat world today. But the increasing health issues associated with them needs to be carefully studied before getting yourself involved with them.

They are time consuming because of the intensive grooming required to maintain their skin and coat integrity. They are an expensive breed to keep healthy as well.

I highly recommend that anyone considering adding a Persian to their family do some intense research first.

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