Feline Herpes cat - running out of ideas...

[sarahtruly]

Hi All,

My kitty Fig has Feline Herpes. He is 7. Lately he has had a lot of breakouts (URI) where he is put on antibiotics. We also give him L-lysine everyday, plus nasal saline and Little Noses (if he's really congested). I also use Comfort Zone (Feliway). I feel like I am doing everything and yet I'm not able to get it under control. He was really stressed out this summer because our beloved kitty (Fig's best friend) Dinah past away. Then we adopted another kitty (they get along fine thankfully) which also added some stress.

My vet has said for me to hold off on antibiotics as long as possible (or until the nasal discharge is discolored).

He just had blood work done in October and everything came back normal. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas? Or new of a great antibiotic? He was on liquid Zithromyicin (sp), and that seemed to work at first, but he kept getting sick so now we are going to try zenequin capsules.

I am feeling very hopeless now. I love him so much and he's such a wonderful beautiful cat. I really want to help him feel better.

Thanks,
Sarah

[growler~GateKeeper]

What food is he on? How is his appetite during the breakouts?

Have you considered consulting a Homeopathic Vet?

[sarahtruly]

He is on Royal Canin indoor mature cat 27. Plus I give him a little Wellness wet food twice a day. He does not lose his appetite during breakouts thankfully, but he does lose energy.

I will look into the homeopathic vet, thanks! The only homeopathic stuff I've tried is the Comfort Zone (Feliway).

I noticed another pattern, he gets sicker when the weather is bad (as it is now). We live in an old apartment so the temperature in the house is usually similar to the temp outside...

[growler~GateKeeper]

Any reason he's on RC dry and not Wellness? I ask given the ingredient list of RC (and if you remember the food recall that RC was a part of) is far inferior to that of Wellness. Have you tried having him eat Wellness dryfood or just on Wellness canned food? or any canned only?

The "indoor" formulas are generally a gimmic-y thing to make the food companies more money

Especially given that yours is an adult male cat he really should be on canned only or raw food, the last thing you want at this point is the addition of urinary crystals, diabetes, kidney failure, overweight etc. Some reading on nutrition here and http://www.catinfo.org/

I'm a huge advocate of raw feeding, though I know it's not for everyone, it does provide the best immune system boost for any animal as there is nothing processed or lost in cooking. My 17 year old kidney failure cat is raw fed

Feliway is a pheromone (aka a chemical) that works to trigger a natural behavioural response from the targeted species, being that is a chemical phermone is not homeopathic however the reasoning behind the use is more along the lines of homeopathy - like cures like.

Do you have any fleecy type blankets that Fig lays on to keep him warm when the temp dips outside? Alot of how his enery level is correlates to how he feels, clearing of sinus and symptomatic treatments. A warm hot-waterbottle wrapped in a towel under a blanket is good to keep him cosy without burning him

One good thing to do is keep a record of when the out breaks seem worse/better - symptoms/temp/time of day/what he ate/energy level/stress factors, you may find other subtle patterns in there too.

There is also another thread here you may wish to have a look at discussing the same issue: http://www.pets.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=58161

When looking for a homeopathic vet this has a list of homeopaths following world renowned Dr Pitcairns' teachings http://www.drpitcairn.com/referrals/anhc_referrals.html

[Dr Lee]

A couple of thoughts...

First of all it seems like you are doing the correct treatments for feline herpes - lysine and Feliway. Remember that antibiotics will not address the viral infection itself but only secondary (opportunistic) bacterial infections. You might want to ask your veterinarian about idoxyuridine eye drops which can help out. The drops can help with not only conjunctivititis but sneezing as the medication goes down the nasolacrimal duct into the sinus area. Idoxyuridine is an antiviral medication.

A second thought is that I don't want us to mis another diagnosis. If we are appropriately treating for herpes and the clinical signs are still present, could there be another cause of the symptoms? Sometimes primary sinusitis disorders like: foxtail or other foreign body, bacterial infection, fungal infection or mass. Severe periodontal disease can also have similar signs. Other possibilities exist too.

Hope this helps.

[sarahtruly]

Thanks both of you.

Growler - Thanks for all the info! I will check out that other thread. Fig has about a million warm blankets all over the apartment. I will try the warm water bottle method too. :-) Regarding his food: our vet recommended a senior dry or wet food with less than 30% protein and Wellness (which he was on for 5 years) does not have a dry food with less than 30% protein. I may look into a wet food only option... I'll try anything at this point! :-) Yes, I know Royal Canin was on the Naughty list. It's actually a really long story as I've been trying to find the right food for our cats for awhile. When we were feeding him only wet food he had a tendency to scarf it all down too quickly and then throw it up. But I may give it another shot...

Dr. Lee - Thank you for your thoughts. Fig has been tested for a possible fungal issue or foreign object and nothing was found. I also took him to three separate vets just in case and they all think it's the herpes virus. His teeth are good too. I will definitely talk to our vet about Idoxyuridine.

I really appreciate everyone's help. Thank you so much.

[Love4himies]

Sorry to hear you are having a rough go with herpes.

I don't have alot of experience with it but do believe my last two foster kittens had it. After rescuing them, they stayed at the shelter for a couple of weeks eating RC while I was waiting for room to foster them at my place. One kitten was so overcome with his cold, that he wouldn't eat as he couldn't smell his food. As with all my fosters, I started them on a raw/Wellness (kitten) canned diet. I found they did very well on this combination.

[sarahtruly]

Thanks Love. I'm going to look into all these suggestions. It seems I still have a lot of research to do! :-)

[sarahtruly]

Ok so here's what we're doing:

1. We are transitioning Fig and Moxie to a canned (wet) food diet. They like Wellness.

2. Fig has been on the antibiotic zenequin for three days (it's a 14 day run). He seems to be a little less congested, but not by very much. I know, it's still early.

3. We give him one drop of Little Noses in the AM if he's congested.

Thinking back, he got sick in February because we went away on vacation for 5 days. I didn't board him this time and had our neighbor take care of him and Dinah, but it still stressed him out. Then he stayed well all spring and into the summer. He didn't have another URI until September when Dinah passed away. And we've been fighting it off and on since then.

So we'll see how this goes. He is definitely active and has a healthy appetite. He doesn't seem to really notice or care that he's sick. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can get him stable again like he was for most of last year!

[kathryn]

1. Famciclovir oral. 1/4 tablet once a day.
2. Idoxuridine eye drops 2-4 times a day.

Helps my FHV a bit. I do the lysine thing too but have noticed it doesn't really do anything.

The famciclovir is what really makes the big difference. Antibiotics are pretttyyy much useless for FHV outbreaks.


Oh and a good food helps too. I think my Jack would be so much worse if we weren't feeding him a holistic diet.

[sarahtruly]

Well, Fig seemed to be doing really well (he has three days left on the antibiotics). His runny/stuffy nose was gone and he had a ton of energy. Since he was doing so well I decided to lay off the Little Noses (decongestant Phenylephrine Hydrochloride drops) since I didn't think he should be on it everyday. Almost immediately the runny/stuffy nose came back.

Is it safe to give him the Little Noses everyday? Twice a day? He seems like he needs it...

Any thoughts?

[riff15]

Hi sarahtruly,

as promised (better late than never i guess...) i checked the name of the med that worked on Carson for his URI but it looks like you already tried it. (AZITHROMYCIN). sorry i couldn't be more help but glad to hear fig is doing better.