Sigh....ringworm

So my girlfriend and I seem to have contracted ringworm from somewhere. We did recently bring a new kitten into the household (which already had 2 dogs living in it) who was supposedly cleared of ringworm and any other crap that could be spread or harmful to its health. I checked as much of his skin as I could while bathing him and only came upon one tiny mark on his skin which seemed like a tiny red bump or pimple. I have monitored his skin for the past week and he has zero lesions and the bump is alread going away. That's it! No other signs of ringworm on him or loss of hair anywhere. This is all while my girlfriend and I are breaking out with about 7 ringworm markings on each of our bodies. We have not checked the dogs yet and are keeping both the dogs and the kitten separate for now since he has a vet appt. coming up next Tuesday to get some answers since we want to be sure it isn't spread any further.

I have searched the forums and have taken alot of advice from them. We are keeping the room the kitten is confined to completely spotless, along with the rest of the house that we occupy. My girlfriend is dusting all surfaces everyday, I am swiffering every night before bed, we are not wearing any clothes (or towels) twice, and after each interaction with the kitten we are using hand sanitizer.

As far as personal health, we are applying bleach to our lesions along with tea tree oil afterwards. After applying both things to each lesion I am covering two of them with bandages.

So my 2 questions are:
1) Do you all have any suggestions as to something I am missing?
2) If the kitten turns out to NOT have ringworm (or turns out to be a carrier only therefore not showing any signs of it), and we end up passing it on to him, what are the best ways to remedy his condition being that he is only approx. 15-16 weeks old. I've read that a good option is to shave a cat with ringworm, but being that he's young I don't want to have him freeze to death since they can't regulate their own body heat as well when they're younger.

You can pass the ringworm to the animals and they in turn can pass it to you. Tea tree oil is poisonous to cats so be careful handling the cat after applying it to yourselves. There are a number of threads on ringworm - just do a search and start reading.

I'm no expert but there are a number of folks here who have suffered through this horrible problem and it takes time to get rid of it. It's good that you are seeing the vet and hopefully he'll be able to give you some medication for the cat.

There should be others on soon to hopefully give you more insight, but, as I said, check out the other threads on ringworm.

Oh yes, certainly takes time to get rid of it! I'm on my 4th bout with one particular kitty.

Clean everything, fabrics, floors, walls, etc. DO NOT USE BLEACH WHERE THE ANIMALS CAN GET INTO IT! I cannot stress that enough, someone was telling me tonight they killed their kitty with bleach.

Go to a vet for treatment on your kitty. Do not do anything without your vets consent. Your kitty is young enough that it will not take much of a "wrong" treatment to kill him. IMO, shaving is worthless. I am currently treating with Conofite cream & Fluconozole liquid. Hopefully, it works this time.

Here's the thread from when I had ringworm http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87444

I treated it with Lotrimin from the drugstore, on me, not Zissou (what the doctor told me to do). I agree about not doing anything to your cat without the vet say-so, shaving doesn't do anything it's on the skin not the hair. She never showed any signs of it at all and I've never seen it on me again either.

Wash your sheets and start using it on the spots keeping a bandaid over them. After a couple days you aren't contagious anymore. After a few weeks it'll be totally gone as long as you keep using it.

There's a fungus among us

Getting rid of the ringworm on myself was not hard, getting rid of it on my two 5 week old kittens was. I used lotrimin and it quickly went away.
It took two months to get rid of on the kittens with daily applications of RX goop (we called it pomade since most of the bald spots were on the kitten's heads, poor things).
I know it sounds gross, but be grateful it's on you and not your pets. Hopefully, they won't get it.
I didn't get it bad on myself though, just a couple spots that went away fast, so it might be an unusual case. Lotrimin is your friend.

Devlyn

~Im so sorry that you have this. I too have Ringworm right now long with 2 of my 3 children and a whole litter of kittens...plus one of my adult cats. These cats were all strays when I got them so I assume that is how I contracted it. As far as getting rid of it...GOOD LUCK...Ive been treating myself, kids and cats for WEEKS now with no much luck. I have actual scarring from my lesions that have dried up but Im getting breakouts in OTHER places. Im a darker skinned person so the spots are SUPER white that HAVE cleared up...dont know if they will ever blend in with the rest of me. I feel like a Dalmation! My son has it on the tip of his nose and going up inside his nose alittle bit. Its driving him CRAZY! My 6 yr old has a spot on her shoulder. Ive tried all antifungal creams...cats are getting lime/sulfer dips twice a week....along with some cream from the vet...still no end in sight for this AWEFULLY ANNOYING disease!~

I and the cats had ringworm a few months ago. We did not get rid of it until I started on Lamissil cream and tablets, and hte cats aso had an oral med plus Imaveral shampoo to be used every three days. But from all I hear from others too, the oral meds are the key to getting rid of it.

Hi, one of my cats had ring worm a few years ago. The vet gave her Program (monthly pills for fleas, but it works for ring worm too.) One dose and it cleared up right away and none of my other cats, dog, or me got infected. Maybe those of you living with ring worm now could ask your vet for some Program.

gads........let me share my ringworm saga. two years ago, we adopted two kittens from a local shelter. neither showed ANY signs of ringworm and after my entire family was covered head to toe with ringworm (and several of our friends were also infected), they were finally diagnosed as ringworm carriers (after going to two different vets). they had a mckensie (sp) comb test, hair into a petri dish and left overnight. the dishes lit up like fourth of july in less than 24 hours. we surrendered the kittens to a second chance shelter and they found a foster family to treat them. we could not get rid of the ringworm on ourselves with topical creams and ended up on grisafulvin (sp) to cure it (not a good drug to be on). we were also unable to get another animal in the house for over a year as the ringworm spores live that long.

i will send vibes your way that you can get yourself and your animals straightened away in a timely manner......

cntrygrlblessings