Question regarding URI

Two weeks ago I brought a new kitten home. After one day I noticed kitten was sneezing and was very congested. I took him to the vet, vet said it's URI. I put him on meds and kept him away from my existing cat.
One week later existing cat got very sick sneezing, coughing, a lot of open mouth breathing. Took her to the vet right away. And of course it turned out she now has an URI too. It is a lot harder on her because she is 14 years old. Anyway, the kitten is healthy now and the vet told me to keep the two cats separated. Vet also said that my older cat can pass it back on to my kitten. Now I am so scared. Has anyody dealed with this before? I don't want my kitten to get sick again and have a vicious cycle going on. Not to mention the cost. I already paid $700.00 in vet bills because older cat had to go to emergency and was put in hospital for one day. How big are the changes of the healthy kitten to get sick with URI again? Doesn't the virus stay in the air for a long time? Do I have to desinfect my whole house, how would I go about this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

I would keep the two cats separated - put kitty in a separate room since she's new to the house and let your other kitty have the run of the place (if that's what she had). Make sure to spend lots of time with your little kitty so she doesn't get lonely or bored. I'd suggest making sure she's got a view out a window and putting up a bird feeder that uses suction cups on the window too.

When you go into the kitten room, have a set of clothes you wear in there - especially something to cover your feet. When you leave the room, change your clothes and stick them in a bag or something and wash your hands before doing anything else. (At the shelter, we have coveralls we just pull up over everything and slip into a separate pair of boots. We hang that up inside the door of the sick room and leave the boots behind, and we use disinfectant on our hands as soon as we're out the door).

This should help prevent giving the cold back and forth between the two until your older kitty has the URI cleared up and has finished her meds.

Hope she gets better SOON!

Laurie

Thank you for your reply. So, do I put the sick older cat in a room by herself and leave the healthy kitten out? Would it be okay to put the healthy kitten in the room by herself instead and let the sick older cat out? My sick older cat doesn't like to be locked into the room since this is her house and she was there first.

That is what I suggested you do - maybe it wasn't clear. Put the new kitten in the separate room and let your older resident cat have the run of the house.



Laurie