question about herpes, lysine, etc.

laureen227

laureen227

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Pixel has decided to have a herpes flare-up. i noticed it this morning, & tried to dose her with the powdered lysine in some wet food, but she wouldn't eat it, so i gave her some lysine gel, which she hates. my question is this - can i add the powdered lysine to their drinking water? does it change the taste? if i can, does anyone know some ratios? i need to clean the fountains anyway, so it'd be easy to replace all of the water with lysine-enhanced water if that's possible. any ideas? i'm supposed to go out of town on tuesday for 5 days, so if i could do this, it'd take care of dosing her while i'm gone in a very easy, non-stressful way. i'm also going to the pet store for feliway refills today to help ease her stress level.
 
momofmany

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Lysine is taking by humans also so you can experiment on yourself first. Taste the powder by itself, then put some in the water and see if it dissolves and drink that also.

Sorry, just started using the powder form a few weeks back after Enisyl changed the paste formula and Muddy won't take the paste anymore. I haven't experimented with it enough to help. He is not having any issues with the powder in his food (1/4 tsp to 1/4 can food thoroughly mixed).

I would suspect that if 4 cats share the same water bowl, you would have to put in a lot of powder to give them the preventative daily dose of 1/4 tsp.
 
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laureen227

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Originally Posted by Momofmany

Lysine is taking by humans also so you can experiment on yourself first. Taste the powder by itself, then put some in the water and see if it dissolves and drink that also.
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i did think of that, but i'm sure their taste buds are different. but it's worth a try, i guess. i'll have to do some math to figure out how much to put in.
HATE doing math!
 
momofmany

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Originally Posted by laureen227

i did think of that, but i'm sure their taste buds are different. but it's worth a try, i guess. i'll have to do some math to figure out how much to put in.
HATE doing math!
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If you knew how much water they drank each day it would be easier. If you're like me, you refresh the bowls without measuring how much they actually drink. I'm good at math and would have problems with this one.

If I were to guess, I'd put in about 1/4 teaspoon per 1/2 cup water. Lysine won't hurt them if they take too much, particularly if one is having a flare up right now. Muddy gets a double dose during flare ups.
 
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laureen227

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Originally Posted by Momofmany

If you knew how much water they drank each day it would be easier. If you're like me, you refresh the bowls without measuring how much they actually drink. I'm good at math and would have problems with this one.

If I were to guess, I'd put in about 1/4 teaspoon per 1/2 cup water. Lysine won't hurt them if they take too much, particularly if one is having a flare up right now. Muddy gets a double dose during flare ups.
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thanks for the amount tip! i do usually refresh without checking, but since i'm going out of town on tuesday, they won't get refreshed during that time. it's worth a try, anyway.
 
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Hi~
It sounds like you already have some pretty good advice, just thought I would share what I do with Melody and her herpes. I for years have been giving her Lysine 500mg capsules, they are too big for her to swallow so I just mix it in with a spoonful of wet food each evening and untill recently she has not had any flare ups at all. I am thinking the reason she has been soo bad lately is due to the stress of our moves to our new house, which was supposed to be this weekend but thanks to the blizzard we had earlier in the week and 3 feet of snow, it looks like maybe next weekend. I know she hates living in the mass of boxes as we do! I also when she gets really bad flare use an antibiotic eye drop for a few days and that seems to get her back on track. Good luck and let me know if I can help in any other way. There is also an eye drop called Idoxuridine that I have used in the past to help keep flare ups from happening, but it is kind of expensive and I found that the other drops work just as well and much less expensive.
 
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laureen227

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Originally Posted by kittycorner

It sounds like you already have some pretty good advice, just thought I would share what I do with Melody and her herpes. I for years have been giving her Lysine 500mg capsules, they are too big for her to swallow so I just mix it in with a spoonful of wet food each evening and untill recently she has not had any flare ups at all.
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that's actually what i have...but Pixel won't eat the wet food
that's why i'm gonna try putting it in the water.she doesn't have any trouble with her eyes - she gets sores on her face, poor baby!
 
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When I had many ferals eating out of a community pan, the vet said just figure 1/4 tsp. per cat and mix it in. I rather suspect that if she won't eat her food with it in there that she may reject the water too.

Have you tried spicing up the food with a little Brewers Yeast in hopes that will make the food more appealing to her? That's what I've been doing to kind of hide the Lysine lately. For some it works and others still don't wanna budge.
 
gizmocat

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I put the lysine gel on my finger and put it in Gizmo's mouth just as I do with a pill. She doesn't love it, but she eats it.
I'd get the lysine gel from a vet and not use the human variety; it may cost a bit more, but the cat eats it.
 
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laureen227

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Originally Posted by gizmocat

I put the lysine gel on my finger and put it in Gizmo's mouth just as I do with a pill. She doesn't love it, but she eats it.
I'd get the lysine gel from a vet and not use the human variety; it may cost a bit more, but the cat eats it.
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actually, the gel i have is for cats. but she doesn't like it anyway. she also rarely eats wet food without the lysine, so i don't really think that's the reason she's refusing the wet food
anyway, she's drinking the water, so i think it's working...
 
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Here is a link to lysine amounts in foods. The list is for humans, so includes a lot of foods a cat won't eat, but there are also lots of treats for kitties.
http://www.herpes.com/Nutrition.shtml

Garfield had a flare up, too. I know the vet likes to give him a course of antibiotics when this happens, but Gar cannot take pills. He had distemper as a baby, and took so many nasty medications, that he simply vomits them up. He won't take lysine pills, either, unless I sprinkly them on my leftovers that he is "stealing". He doesn't like canned food, either, and especially if lysine is added.

I gave Gar a shot of penicillin...1 cc, the same amt the vets give. (Check with your vet first to see if this is an option for you.) Then he gets a spoonful of yogurt daily...he balked at it initially, but now is enjoying it. From the list, cottage cheese or tuna would be a good choice, and boy I wish I could get him some wild pheasant....basically, there are lots of extra lysine choices on that list that would be easy to get a kitty to eat!

I will try adding lysine to their water though...what a great idea!
 
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laureen227

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Originally Posted by Momofmany

Very good - how much did you end up mixing in the water?
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well, i added the contents of 2 capsules, [1000 mg] to 16 ounces of water in a clean glass bottle, capped it, shook it vigorously & used that to fill the fountains. took about 3-4 bottles per fountain. then when i topped off fountains i used the same procedure. i came back from my trip last night - her healing sores [they were improving when i left tuesday] are completely gone, & she has no new lesions!
i'm going to continue adding it from now on as her maintenance dose. i'm only going to administer the gel if she sports any new lesions, but i bet that won't happen with the maintenance lysine-water!
 
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