Cats w/ Herpes - Lysine Use

Cat (3 y/o spayed) has herpes. She had a severe URI when we brought her home from the shelter and that's our best guess as to when she caught the herpes virus. This initial breakout was fixed with a week stay in the hospital (IV's) and an eventual insertion of an e-tube (they found ulcers on her tongue and refused all food).

When she's under stress, she will have a flare up which is usually isolated to a weepy left eye. This usually clears up no problem and has only happened once or twice over the past 2 years that we had her.

In June, about a month after adopting our 2nd kitty, she had a severe flareup where both eyes started weeping and her left eye started developing a bacterial infection and that cleared up with Terramycin within a week.

Last week, she had a few days of low appetite. The vet said that this was probably related to herpes and gave us some Lysine. The weepy eye did come back after she had a low appetite for a few days. I've never experienced a lack of appetite from her since the first time so I'm not sure how common that is with cats with herpes.

After the vet visit (last Saturday), she eating well again. She's a little tentative with her food (she used to be a wolfer), but she does eat all of it.

My questions for those of you who have cats with herpes:
(1) Does your herpes kitty have a lack of appetite due to herpes? What other symptoms indicate a flareup?
(2) Do you keep your herpes kitties on Lysine permanently or only when you notice indicators of a flareup?
(3) What is your source of Lysine? Our vet prescribed an oral gel, but my husband thinks that it will be perfectly fine for us to get a powder and put it into yogurt or mix with water to make our own paste. I want to know what you folks prefer.
(4) This is the second time we've had a flareup since getting our second cat in May - is he causing her continual stress that's triggering these flareups? They seem to get along for the most part but I worry about her health if she's going to have frequent flareups.

Sorry for the length, but I wanted to include as much info as possible and hopefully get some good advice about what other folks have experienced with feline herpes.

Thanks in advance!

My questions for those of you who have cats with herpes:
(1) Does your herpes kitty have a lack of appetite due to herpes? What other symptoms indicate a flareup?

No, but a stuffy nose will have that effect on any species.

(2) Do you keep your herpes kitties on Lysine permanently or only when you notice indicators of a flareup?

I am new to this but Vet Tech told me YES, permanently. It prevents flareups.

(3) What is your source of Lysine? Our vet prescribed an oral gel, but my husband thinks that it will be perfectly fine for us to get a powder and put it into yogurt or mix with water to make our own paste. I want to know what you folks prefer.

Vet Tech (and I) bought the human pills, cheapest at pharmacy, and grind them between two spoons and add to food. A slight inconvenience, but a yrs supply is 8 bucks!

(4) This is the second time we've had a flareup since getting our second cat in May - is he causing her continual stress that's triggering these flareups? They seem to get along for the most part but I worry about her health if she's going to have frequent flareups.

No idea. Someone remarked that some cats "grow out of it?" But I really do not know a thing.

One of my cats has it but the flareups haven't been as severe as with your kitty. I've never noticed a loss of appetite.

I buy lysine capsules at the health food store and give her 500 mg twice a day. I open the capsule and mix the powder in her wet food. She is getting the lysine on a permanent basis. The only time she's had an outbreak since I adopted her is when I brought another kitty home. My guess is that if you continually give her the lysine and time to adjust to the new kitty the flareups will stop. The outbreaks are definitely triggered by stress.

Originally Posted by 4meezers3kids

My questions for those of you who have cats with herpes:
(1) Does your herpes kitty have a lack of appetite due to herpes? What other symptoms indicate a flareup?

No, but a stuffy nose will have that effect on any species.

Click to expand...

The oddest thing is that she's had a stuffy nose before and eaten fine all other times. In fact, she didn't sound at all like she had a stuffy nose when she wasn't eating.

Originally Posted by tempteq

My questions for those of you who have cats with herpes:
(1) Does your herpes kitty have a lack of appetite due to herpes? What other symptoms indicate a flareup?
(2) Do you keep your herpes kitties on Lysine permanently or only when you notice indicators of a flareup?
(3) What is your source of Lysine? Our vet prescribed an oral gel, but my husband thinks that it will be perfectly fine for us to get a powder and put it into yogurt or mix with water to make our own paste. I want to know what you folks prefer.
(4) This is the second time we've had a flareup since getting our second cat in May - is he causing her continual stress that's triggering these flareups? They seem to get along for the most part but I worry about her health if she's going to have frequent flareups.

Click to expand...

1. haven't noticed a lack of appetite... ever. Pixel's symptoms include a increase in eye mucus & she also gets little sores on her face.
2. they all get lysine all the time, 'cause that's the easiest way to keep Pixel on it. i put it in their water. if she has a flare-up, i give her additional lysine mixed with chicken baby food.
3. i buy human lysine capsules at the health food store & take them apart to mix with either the water or the baby food.
4. stress does tend to cause flare-ups. Pixel's most recent one was when Firefox came into our household this summer.

my cat has herpes and I give her lysine when i see a flare up starting. I bought tablets at the drugstore and ground them up and put 1/4 tsp in her wet food in the morning only. I also refill a feliway infusor. and yes, it is stress related.

i've seen no appetite change except when she is feeling unwell.

Originally Posted by ConsumerKitty

I buy lysine capsules at the health food store and give her 500 mg twice a day. I open the capsule and mix the powder in her wet food. She is getting the lysine on a permanent basis. The only time she's had an outbreak since I adopted her is when I brought another kitty home. My guess is that if you continually give her the lysine and time to adjust to the new kitty the flareups will stop. The outbreaks are definitely triggered by stress.

Click to expand...

This is what I do. I buy 500ml human capsules and mix half a capsule into wet food twice a day. This has kept the URI at bay. If I hear someone sneezing or they look runny eyed, I up the dose to 1000ml each a day. I intend to do this for the rest of their lives.

They don't seem to notice the lysine in their food at all. It does have a slight taste, but it doesn't have a smell, and my two don't seem bothered by it. I've never tried the paste, my vet told me to buy the capsules and it's been working so far.

Thanks all.

Once the paste that the vet sold us runs out (we were trying a new vet's office and we weren't very pleased), I think we'll use the capsules/powder.

I like the water idea. I'll have to see how much that alters the taste of the water and if the cats mind.

I'm still confused by the appetite thing because she isn't stuffy and ate like a happy camper yesterday but today didn't even really react when I called her for breakfast. I'll have to find another vet if this continues.

Hi All,
This is my first post. I was excited to see so many people using L-Lysine supplements (intended for humans) with their cats.
I have been giving my cat Vet Solutions Viralys L-Lysine paste for the past year.
She needs it every day (250mg) otherwise she develops eye infections.
The problem I have found with the paste is that it contains an artificial sweetener and maple flavor which I am not fond of making my cat eat...especially since she has gum problems.
I have been looking at a few different L-Lysine products intended for humans which I would be able to switch her over to. I am very pleased to see that so many people are doing this without a problem. I am looking at AOR L-lysine HCl . Since these are capsules of 500mg L-Lysine I am assuming I can open the capsule and give her a half capsule, mixing it into a tiny amount of wet food as I do with her L-Lysine paste currently.
Can anyone confirm that this sounds safe and accurate?
Is there any difference between the L-lysine Free Form and the L-Lysine HCL?

Thanks in advance
-Tazacat

PS I notice that the Vet Solutions Viralys L-Lysine paste uses the HCl version of L-Lysine.

Hey folks,
I've also recently started giving my cats lysine because I suspect that they have herpes. I'm mixing the lysine into their wet food once a day.

So far, the only lysine I can find here is in the tablets, which I have to grind up.

What brand are the "capsules" of L-lysine you guys are using and where are you buying them at (large chain stores, etc)? It would make it so much faster just to open a capsule and dump the lysine into their food.

sorry about hijacking your thread tempteq, but I thought you might benefit from this question as well.

Thanks all,
Art

(1) Does your herpes kitty have a lack of appetite due to herpes? What other symptoms indicate a flareup?

I'm not sure if it's the Herpes or allergies because the symptoms are the same, but I have one cat who'll get extremely weepy/runny eyes when she's having a flare up. Here appetite NEVER goes down! LOL My older cat will get sneezy/snotty or a full blown URI when she has a flare up. She's most succeptible when she's stressed, and she's easily stressed! LOL Took her to the vet on Monday because she had something wrong with her eye. By Wednesday she was sneezing! Her appetite is down, but not greatly.

(2) Do you keep your herpes kitties on Lysine permanently or only when you notice indicators of a flareup?

Both of my girls get Lysine daily as it also helps with allergies. They get 500mg daily when there's no flare up and 1000mg daily when they're having a flare up.

(3) What is your source of Lysine? Our vet prescribed an oral gel, but my husband thinks that it will be perfectly fine for us to get a powder and put it into yogurt or mix with water to make our own paste. I want to know what you folks prefer.

I get the 500mg tablets from the health food section at Wal-Mart for my older kitty. I crush the tablet between 2 spoons and add to her wet food. For my younger kitty, I use a powder from the health food store, as it's actually higher grade and cheaper. My older (finicky) cat won't touch that stuff!!

(4) This is the second time we've had a flareup since getting our second cat in May - is he causing her continual stress that's triggering these flareups? They seem to get along for the most part but I worry about her health if she's going to have frequent flareups.

Stress is the major trigger for Herpes flare ups. To minimalize stress in your home, keep as consistent a schedule as possible, keep strange noises to a minimum, and invest in Comfort Zone w/ Feliway diffusers. I used to run 3 in my house, but now I'm able to only run 1. If I know something unusual is coming up that will stress out my older kitty, I'll plug in another one in a different part of the house for her. If worse comes to worse, I use Bach's Rescue Remedy drops, but those really make her dopey, so I'm VERY selective about using them.

That's probably more than you wanted to know, but this is something we deal with on a daily basis in my house.

Stephanie

Thanks... I have looked all over here, they don't even carry them at wal-mart, walgreens, or CVS. I found some that are quite cheap on Amazon, so I guess I'll go that rout (I can stand crushing tablets for a few more days).

Art

I use this brand. Their shipping is reasonable and they ship fast. The 1 lb container will last a year with 1 cat when you give 500mg a day. 1/4 tsp = about 460 mg.

http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails....1&pid=653&at=0

Amy (& others)~That's the exact same brand of powder that I use with my cat. I bought mine at the local health food store. I also feed about 1/4t a day unless she's having a flare up, then I feed 1/2 t a day.

Stephanie

Hopefully this will answer your questions.

My Jordan 4 yr. Has had 2 bad flare ups. During the first one he would not eat and I force fed hime 2x a day & gave him sub-q fluids 2x a day. The second, he was eating well enough on his own, but was sleeping all the time. Right now his eyes weep almost all the time, but that's due to being on pred. for other medical reasons. After the second flare up the vet told me he should be on Lysine for the rest of his life. It won't hurt so I just give it to him every day. I have had the gel, but he really doesn't like that. He's a much better pill taker than liquid. He gets 500 mg everyday. You can certainly buy the pills in the store & crush them. I also know the company that makes the gel, makes a powder form. It's just a matter of what works best for you & your cat.

We have 7 month old brothers from a shelter.

One developed crusty nose.

My niece is a vet tech and she says it is probably herpes, contracted when he was at the shelter to be neutered.

I have read the Lysine threads and I am fine with dosage and all.

My question is: should I supplement brother and our 3 year old female cat, or just the one actively shedding virus?

To keep it simple, you can supplement them all.  It won't hurt the ones who don't have the virus.