6 Things I Learned from Our Ringworm Plague (book length....)

Just peeking in to give a brief update on our ringworm situation.

Graysan has received his first confirmed negative!     The Vet actually waited the full 4 weeks to make sure that there was definitely no growth in the tube.  We had him cultured again last Tuesday and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will receive another negative.  Yong-Gi is still fine and doing extremely well.  

The only issue is that Graysan is still itching like mad!  The Vet has no idea why and neither do we.  Even bathing (we are doing so once a week) is not really helping.  Our doctor pulled him off of the terbinafine (they were on it for 7 weeks on top of 5 weeks on fluconazole) so we can watch and see if the itching lessens.  She said it can stay in the system for at least 21 days.  If we see any new lesions we will obviously have to put him back on it immediately, but with a first negative she felt that it was okay to pull him off and observe. He was not itchy in December or January but started scratching some time in the middle of February.  We assumed it was a reaction to the Lime-Sulfur dip.  He had three dips with it and even after we stopped he continued to itch.  It escalated more in March and he started over grooming on top of it!  That is why it is so confusing.  Why is he itching more when he should be getting better.....   We have no clue...   

We have had a cone on him for 5 days now...  He tore into his right side and the back of his right leg.     I still suspect some sort of mites but there has not been any confirmation.  We did a skin scraping and it came back negative but that does not mean he may not have any.   We put Revolution on him again today (It has been over 3 weeks) and we will do so again in two weeks.  One way to attempt to break the life cycle if he has any.  

So where we stand is that Yong-Gi (so far) is clear.  We are awaiting test for Graysan.  And we may consider a third culture to be safe.  

The Vet said that she agreed with my course of action to wait until we get negatives and for the medicine to clear his system.  He is still on Chlorpheneramine but it does not really seem to be doing a lot for the itch.... And we do not want to use steroids if we can avoid it.   I am seriously considering changing them to a raw diet when all of this is over.   Try to keep their skin healthy and start them while they are young.

After 5 months of constant cleaning I hate to admit that I am starting to get burnt out...   We still do a full disinfecting once a week, vacuuming twice weekly now because we only have two throw rugs, swiffering and wiping down things daily, and changing sheets on beds and couches twice a week.  But after I found out about the negative I gave myself a 3 day cleaning break!       I will keep the pace up until we get a second negative.

If he is still itching 3 weeks from now we will discuss a diet change and set up an appointment with a dermatology specialist.   Please keep your fingers crossed for us!  And thank you all again for being there and helping me stay sane through all of this!  

Thank you everyone for your input, it has been really helpful and supportive. Ringworm is horrible and difficult to get rid of. Has anyone had any luck with borax in laundry? Or am I best using bleach in my laundry?

@foxxycat  That is a really good idea to make a point of having his records reflect that he cannot have steroids. It was a very traumatic experience, I was seriously convinced he was going to have to be put to sleep for FIP. So I'm grateful that wasn't the case, but I'm uncomfortable attempting any additional steroids with his known sensitivity. I also appreciate your alternative novel protein diet recommendations. I will discuss them with my vet as the cost of the prescription food for novel proteins is daunting!

@baileytc  Hmm I hope you're right and it's the good kind of itraconazole! I purchased it from a local compounding pharmacy and it is only good for a month and it must be kept refrigerated to maintain potency. 

Cerenia is a good idea, I've read good things about it on here. Although, luckily, he doesn't have much of an issue with vomiting. Nowadays, he vomits only about once a month, its the diarrhea that is breaking me. He makes it to the litterbox it just gets everywhere including all over himself. Then he trails poop around the house. I know he can't help it so I'm not mad at him, I'm just so grossed out and frustrated. I cannot live like this. When I'm home I can clean him off before he does much damage, but this happens x3 times a day so most of the time I can't be home.

I've heard good things about raw but I know I don't have it in me to try it. I just find it gross. I have contemplated home made cooked though, I just can't see convincing him to eat it. He refuses baby food and cooked chicken, and as an older guy with possible IBD I can't really mess around with him not eating. 

kristenann:

If the metronidazole doesn't help the diarrhea within 7-10 days, then you might talk to your vet about doing a diarrhea panel. The uncontrollable diarrhea can be from a bacterial infection, and the panel will figure out which bacterium is causing it and which antibiotic will be effective. I don't have much experience with diarrhea caused by IBD, just vomiting, and my understanding is that cats usually have one symptom or the other, not both, because the location of the inflammation influences whether the cat vomits or has diarrhea.

Commercial raw diets aren't very difficult to deal with, especially the freeze-dried kinds. They're no the big hunks of meat you may be envisioning.

As for him not liking certain foods, have you tried sprinkling them with FortiFlora? It's protein digest, which is highly palatable to cats, and it's a probiotic as well.

Thank you to everyone who has posted on this thread. I'm a serial foster of kittens for a rescue and I'm currently on my second litter of ringworm-infected kittens--ugh. The first had visible lesions when they arrived (I noticed a bald patch on the ear of one of them) but I didn't know what it was until a week or two later, at which point I realized they had spots EVERYWHERE: bellies, faces, etc. Horrible. I had them on itraconozole, topicals, lime sulfur baths, daily laundering and vacuuming, disinfecting with Accel, etc. for weeks. I threw out a ton of clothes and a curtain that were hanging in the room, bought a $400 HEPA-filter vacuum, and bleached the room top to bottom after they'd been adopted out. I somehow made it through without contracting it myself even though I'd been letting them crawl all over my face and neck before I realized what was going on. And luckily, they'd been quarantined in a back bedroom, so contamination to the rest of the house was likely minimal, and none of the 6 pets in the front of the house ever developed clinical infections.

The current litter I have hit the 3-week mark and looked all clear, but right after one of the boys developed a lesion on his tail and so I've been thrown back into the pit of frenzied cleaning and constant laundry and despair. They all came in with bloody diarrhea (probably coccidia, which they were treated for) and he was the sickest, so I think maybe the ringworm took hold then when his immune system was especially depressed. They've all been lime sulfur dipped (I've gotten used to this, so it wasn't so bad) and I'm practicing the same aggressive cleaning regimen as before--thanks again for all the pointers here. I actually decided not to put them on the oral meds this time as one of their brothers developed megaesophagus likely as a result of pilling and had to be euthanized after a prolonged struggle and much debate/work on my part to keep him alive, so I'm just wary of medicating them again. I realize this is an emotional decision rather than a rational one, and one I may end up regretting, but I'm going to see how it goes. 

I've fostered about 5 litters at this point, plus a few extra kittens thrown in here and there, and two have been visibly infected with ringworm, so at this point I'm initiating an introductory lime sulfur dip to every new kitten that comes through my door. I know that can't eliminate the chance of an outbreak totally, but hopefully it'll help cut down on the number of times I have to go through this again.

I guess I'm just wondering how other people deal with the stress of it, the constant terror that you're just covered in/spreading spores, the anxiety of waiting for lesions to appear? It's such a nightmare, fighting an invisible enemy. Thanks!

fosterajumma, people who foster cats are the most amazing people I've ever met. They are, I don't know... not only kinder and more generous in the biggest way, they are simply more evolved  in their goodness than I'll ever be. So I guess it's not so surprising that going through a major ringworm problem didn't stop you from fostering, even though most of us are staggered and horrified and worn out by the whole thing. I've become close to two women who have fostered hundreds of cats and kittens (including two of mine) and they are an inspiration to me in so many ways.

I am sure you're doing everything right...  although maybe you should be taking care of yourself more. Dealing with ringworm and worrying about what might happen next, is incredibly stressful. It is an invisible enemy as you say. But it's helpful to keep in mind that it isn't lethal, although giving the medications — any powerful medications, really — can be, as I'm sorry you've experienced first hand. I'm so sorry you've had to go through that. I know that the kittens you foster are always loved deeply, even though part of that love means giving them to new homes.

(They make liquid Sporanox, btw, which might be somewhat safer for kittens, I imagine. That's what we used on our kittens.)

I can only tell you what I've advised people before, from my own experience with my foursome years ago. I was freaked out beyond belief. I was a buzzing bundle of terror and anxiety. Until I began to think of the spores as being more like dust-mites, to be scooped up and thrown out in my vacuum bag, not some deadly virus. It's not panleukopenia. It's not FIP. It's not going to end in tears this time. Everyone gets better in time, treatment or no treatment.

In the meantime, I recommend binge-watching really good TV shows, eating more chocolate or whatever it is that you love, and extra sleep. Getting out of the house helps. I had to go to a children's hospital to pick up my Sporanox from their pharmacy, and I would always come away feeling so fortunate that I just had this little ringworm problem, not a terribly sick child. So, perspective helps. I don't drink, but I bet cognac would help, too....

It also cheered me up enormously to imagine an alternative to all the cleaning — something Martha Stewart might have done, since I consider that she does things to extremes: Burning my house down! I live in an apartment with some dreadful neighbors (a couple of college-age stoners with a bad band and a one-percenter dad who pays for everything, a guy who likes to throw his many beer cans and worse out the window of our elegant Back Bay, Boston, townhouse...) It was fun to imagine embracing a "minimalist lifestyle" and moving with five cats and my academic husband to some rusty van by the Charles River, which I'd just have to hose down inside every day. Try using your wildest imagination and you, too, may find some relief!

Keep us posted on how things are going. Things have been quiet around here, which I take to mean that people are doing well with their own RW crises.

Take care!

Just giving what I hope and pray will be my last update on this page....

As of May 24, 2016 Graysan and Yong-Gi are both considered negative!!!  The Vet even waited the full four weeks while we were still treating for the second test to come back just to be sure.  So both are now considered ringworm free!!!  

The only reason I did not update is because Graysan is still extremely itchy and we can not figure out why...   He was not itchy in December when it started nor in January or most of February...  He started becoming itchy after the lime-sulfur dips.  We just thought it was irritation from that.  Then in March he started ripping holes into his skin.  Again, the Vet thought it was irritation or even from the ringworm.  We took him off of the dips and began to bathe him in Miconohex shampoo.  It seemed to do nothing for his itching.  Then we changed to Veterinary Formula Antiseptic and Antifungal Medicated Shampoo.  It made his fur much softer but the itching still continued.  It got to the point that we had to e-collar him to stop him from damaging himself.

And yet we still received a second negative.  *sigh* 

So now we turned to the dreaded Prednisolone along with Chlorpheniramine to stop him from ripping into himself.  His fur is still barbed, and he still over grooms, but he is not tearing into his skin.  He has been on it almost 1 1/2 months now.    She feels that this is 'resolved' and wants to try to pull him off the steroid but I keep telling her that he is still licking his hair off.  "Well if he starts again we can put him back on the steroid.".   I think we will eventually take him to a dermatologist.  

He did not have any issues like this until the ringworm.  His hair was fluffy like a bunny and soft.  We are even panicked that maybe the ringworm is not completely gone but none of us ever broke out from it and Yong-Gi is fine.  We have even looked into food allergy.  So far we removed chicken from his diet and all fish.  Grain free.  He is on Nature's Variety LID Turkey and Wild Calling Rabbit.  Not a true allergy diet but trying to make it as minimal as we can.  That will take time to see if it helps at all. (Discussion for another board...)  

Did anyone have the same issues after the ringworm was considered resolved???   Graysan and Y-G's first lesions broke out on December 30, 2015 so it has been 6 months.  By now the ringworm should be out of his system.   I keep reading horror stories like "My cat was clear and 3 months later it came back!".  That is what I am worried about atm.  We can not figure out what is making him itch so badly.  And he is on Revolution as well.  I do not believe we have fleas or that he has mites but we are doing it to be safe.

And may I say that even after the negative I still was cleaning like mad for two weeks.  But I must admit that I have fallen back into my basic cleaning again.  Nice to have a small break after being a cleaning machine for 5 and a half months!     

I am even wondering if his over grooming has become habitual or stress related.  Like he was over grooming from the ringworm and now he can't stop. The doctor believes that if he responded to the steroid then it is something physical.  She said she doubted that it was a food allergy but we could try to put him on one if we wanted. (Again, a discussion for another board).  But how could ringworm trigger a food allergy???  Or did he have a food allergy and the ringworm made it more noticeable....    We have no idea....   *

But I did want to say that we got our ringworm release papers!  So we are happy about that.... We just pray that it is completely resolved.  

Again, thank you to everyone here on this board!  I don't know what I would have done without all of your awesome advice!  None of you will ever realize how much you helped us get through this situation!!!  


 

BlackSakura6 said:

Did anyone have the same issues after the ringworm was considered resolved???   Graysan and Y-G's first lesions broke out on December 30, 2015 so it has been 6 months.  By now the ringworm should be out of his system.   I keep reading horror stories like "My cat was clear and 3 months later it came back!".  That is what I am worried about atm.  We can not figure out what is making him itch so badly.  And he is on Revolution as well.  I do not believe we have fleas or that he has mites but we are doing it to be safe.

Click to expand...

Graysan sounds like one of the cats at the shelter whose ringworm was a nightmare. He's long-haired, about 10-12 years old, FIV+ and came to us with a bad case of ringworm which seemed to have been remedied after over two months of topical and oral meds. He tested completely negative and was moved into a whole different part of the shelter (which pretty much rules out him being reinfected by spores in the environment), only to have a relapse, which took another 3 months to get rid of completely. Unfortunately, Vanya started scratching himself bloody during the first round and didn't stop. He was treated for fleas and ear mites, tested for allergies, put on a limited ingredient diet - and nothing helped. As he was covered with ticks when we first got him, the vets have speculated that the itching was triggered by tick bites. They simply don't know. The only thing that has stopped the itching and scratching completely is a small daily dose of Apoquel.

Thank you jcat for the reply!

We are lucky that Graysan tested negative for FIV/FeLV twice.  He was tested when he first came in and then 6 months later to be safe.  He did have an infection on one of the lesions in February and we gave him a shot of Convenia.  It cleared quickly.  I am considering testing him again but the doctor does not think it is necessary unless we see a definite lesion.  He was on fluconazole for 5 weeks but was still breaking out in lesions so he was placed on terbafine for almost 7 weeks.  We pulled him off of the antifungals when we went for the second test wondering if he was having an allergic reaction to them but obviously that was not the case.  And as the Vet said ringworm in a healthy cat tends to clear on it's own within 5-6 months.

I read your link about Apoquel and it says for use in dogs only.  I would be too afraid to give something like that to Graysan unless all else failed like in Vanya's case.  But thank you for the info.  The odd thing is that when the ringworm first started Graysan was not itchy.  He scratched a little at his eyes and neck when he had a lesion but nothing significant.   It wasn't until he had his third dip that he started ripping his fur out.  And he was still breaking out in lesions even with lime-sulfur dips!!!  That is why we tested him a second time for FIV/FeLV.  Again negative.  Now the hair is completely in where the lesions were but he is targeting his sides, thighs and back legs.  I also noticed him scratching his elbows.  It would seem to point to parasites but we have found nothing on him or in the environment.  We had him tested for skin mites and nothing showed but we know that test is not completely reliable.  He is getting Revolution every 3 weeks to be safe.  And of course he is a house cat that never goes outside.

We completely fear taking him off of the prednisolone...  But I also don't want him to stay on it too long.  He is only on .25ml every other day.  The Vet said that if we pull him off and he begins to rip into himself we can put him back on the steroid and try a strict food allergy diet but she really does not believe that may be the issue.  Except for the itching he is perfectly fine.  No bowel issues.  No vomiting.  No redness f the skin.  No bumps or hives...  Nothing else.  Just pruritus.

Graysan was fine when we brought him in October 2015. But by December he had a yeast infection in his ear.  His Vet at the time (same hospital but a different Vet) said it was from the leftover debris from ear mites.   Graysan unfortunately had allergic reactions to the ear meds.  We got it clear by using Epi-Otic twice a day, Halo Cloud 9 every other day and Colloidal Silver once daily.  Then 3 weeks later ringworm lesions began to break out.  We believe that he may have picked it up from the hospital because we have no other explanation as to how he could have contracted it and that is why another Vet jumped in and took the case.  

So now we question if the yeast infection was really an indication of a food allergy instead of the mite debris.  But we are not sure.  My husband and I said that if we pull him off of the steroid in 2 weeks and he starts to rip into himself again we are definitely taking him to a specialist.  We laugh and say that Graysan is the most expensive street cat that we have ever adopted but he is worth it.  Such a sweetie. (=^_^=)


 

Apoquel is approved for cats in Germany, but it would obviously be off-label use in the U.S.. Pred seems to be very rarely prescribed here, and when it is it's usually only for a couple of days. He did get a topical containing prednisolone, Surolan, but it didn't stop the itching at all. We're in the same boat with Vanya, that is, a bit afraid to stop the medication because it has worked so well.

Three of the four cats that came with Vanya (pulled from a Romanian kill shelter by a rescue) also had ringworm, but no itching. The first round of ringworm meds was effective for them. We wonder whether his open wounds were infected with spores (rare, but possible) and the recurrence had nothing to do with his FIV.

Hi Bunnelina, thank you SO much for your kind response. I never think of fostering as being a kindness to be honest, because I get so much joy back from doing it--tiny kittens around, all the time! I mentioned to my therapist that I often feel silly for the lengths I'll go to for my fosters, and she told me not to feel silly, but to think of it as something I just have to do, on a soul-level. So, that's sort of how I think of it now...a compulsion? Ha.

I'm still not medicating the kittens, partly based on my aforementioned emotional reasons, but also because I had my first litter of ringworm kittens on Itraconozole and it didn't really seem to do much? There were probably invisible benefits, but they continued to develop new lesions while on it (I know those infections were probably already in place sub-clinically before I began the meds, but it was still really annoying) and didn't seem to shorten the amount of time they were actively infected/contagious. I actually had to go out of town before they were fully healed so they went to live with my rescue coordinator, who said they healed up, and then adopted them out to a house with no kids. The rescue imho plays it a little fast and loose with ringworm (they don't do cultures, and the vet they use relies entirely on clinical symptoms) but it's worked for them for many years, so who knows.

Anyway, with this litter I'm just sticking to violent, aggressive cleaning, weekly lime-sulfur dips, and applying clotrimazole cream multiple times a day.

Things are relatively stable for now. It's been just over two weeks since the first lesion appeared on kitten zero (Sam Wilson)'s tail, and he had another pop up on his ear a few days later. His brother Steve Rogers also has a teeny one on his foot that already seems to be healing--or, at least, the fur is growing back swiftly. Their adoptive sister Natasha Romanoff (she's a few weeks older and by far the strongest/hardiest) doesn't have any clinical signs yet, knock on wood. Luckily, I'd been fairly careful about washing their bedding daily and changing my clothes between their room and the rest of the house from the start anyway because they had coccidia, which can live in the environment/be spread through bedding and litter, etc. So, hopefully that cut down on any spores they were shedding prior to the clinical signs showing up. 

I suspect the two boys must have picked the original infections up from their mother; I had another small litter in my kitten room between this batch and the last ringworm litter, and they never picked it up as far as I know. My adult cats have also been in and out of the kitten room since I bleached it up and down following the first bout of ringworm and never had any symptoms. They are relatively healthy (one has chronic herpes which is controlled with L-lysine) and middle-aged, so they probably weren't very susceptible to environmental exposure anyway, though.

I'm pretty exhausted, emotionally. The 4th kitten in the litter (Bucky Barnes; he's the little man in my icon) was my favorite--I know mothers aren't supposed to pick favorites, but he was such a little doll and I loved him insanely--passed away the day after I discovered the first ringworm lesion on Sam. It was hard to adequately mourn Bucky, I think, knowing I had to leave the ER vet where they'd euthanized him and immediately go home to lime-sulfur dip his siblings.

I just hope the effort I've put in is doing something. It's so easy to google yourself into a black hole of despair, knowing your dryer probably isn't hot enough to kill spores, or wondering if triple-washing the bedding is enough, or if the Borax you're throwing into the washer is actually doing anything, or thinking that one time Steve broke out of the room while you were trying to carry in food is going to cause the 6 animals in the front of the house to lose all their hair and that you're just going to be stuck with the plague until you die! I do find it very helpful to think of the ringworm spores as dust, like you've said, and do your best to get rid of as much as you can. 

And believe me, I'm right there with you with the fantasies of burning the whole place down and fleeing the state, haha. I keep telling my adult cats "if you betray me and pick this **** up, mommy's throwing you in the sea." They have yet to look impressed.

Incidentally, my partner is also an academic! He's been abroad for a year doing dissertation research, but will be back in a week, which is great, because I'll have someone to cook for me--eating has really fallen by the wayside in the last few weeks--and listen to me freak out over nothing!

Anyway, thank you again so much for your kind words. It's so, so heartening to hear from people who have been there and back. 

I just spent the day reading this entire amazing thread. It has calmed me down immensely. We adopted a 1 year old DSH, Sheldon, from a local rescue group.

Whoops fell on reply. Anyway Sheldon was supposedly healthy but has some sort of oral health issue that is autoimmune. And... On Saturday, the third day we had him, I found a bare spot on his back hock. I immediately thought of ringworm. When we went to the vet on Tuesday for his new cat checkup they did a culture, by pulling a few potentially infected hairs to grow. They also gave me a topical to put on the site and told me to keep him isolated. That's it. The rescue added I should change clothes after being in his room. So I'm so thankful I found all this or I would be flying totally blind. I have a ton of questions but here are the few most important ones to start:

If I buy a Miele vacuum or the like with a self sealing hepa filter, will I have to throw it away when we get three negatives?

We are supposed to have three rooms of carpet replaced with laminate in August, including the room where he is quarantined. Bad idea? Good idea?

Should I call the vet and ask him to do a better culture? After reading about the toothbrush test and the lesion scraping I'm worried his test won't be conclusive enough and I will question a negative.

And should I be asking for an oral medication as well as the topical?

I feel so bad for this sweet boy. I just can't take him out of quarantine though. There have been no introductions yet and I don't want to do it if it's followed by stressing everyone out with dips etc. I have a 13 yo male, a 12 yo male, a 1 yo female, a 10 yo female dog, plus a 7 year old daughter and a 3.5 year old daughter with autism. I need everything to stay as copacetic as possible. I do spend time with him every day and then change my clothes right after.

I'm going through this terrible plague at home and at work. Wondering, do use the same vacuum in the quarantine room and your house? I bought a hepa one but if you use it in the both placeses how do you clean it

Hi there,

Sorry for the delayed reply. I hope things are going better for you and Sheldon! You were very smart to suspect ringworm so early on and to get to the vet quickly. Let us know if you've gotten a culture result yet.... maybe the problem is something else! Either way, I will try to answer your questions but I hope others (baileytc! BlackSakura6) will chime in because they have more up-to-dae knowledge about culturing and so on.

1. If you buy a Miele, you should buy an extra HEPA filter and their brand of self-sealing bags. When your ringworm plague is over, throw out the HEPA filter that came with the vacuum cleaner and replace it with the spare. You do NOT need to toss the vacuum! The filter will keep spores contained in the bags. Toss the bags as often as you want, but the fact that they are self-sealing means the spores aren't going anywhere inside. I tossed my bags when they were full. There is another, cheaper, thinner filter in some of the vacs in addition to the HEPA that you should change, too. Look around inside for it.

2.  Good idea! I'm not sure where you live, but as you probably have realized, hardwood (and similar) flooring is always a better idea when you have cats, especially where there's a (hopefully once in a lifetime) situation like ringworm. A solid floor is always so much easier to clean, no matter what cat by-product we're talking about (even fur). People often steam-clean their carpets when there's ringworm. Since you are getting rid of yours and since you isolated Sheldon so quickly, you can probably get away with just vacuuming. Can you keep everyone else out of the isolation room until you get rid of the carpet? If so, I'd say keep vacuum and just make sure that carpet is rolled and wrapped before it goes out of the room and is removed. Then try to get in there and do a good wipe-down./vac cleaning of walls and so on before the new floor goes in. (Here in New England, hard flooring adds value to a property while most wall-to-wall does not, so another benefit.)

3. Since the culture has you worried, I'd suggest having a conversation with your vet. Ringworm is a lengthy ordeal and, if your cat has it, you and your vet will need to have many conversations, especially treatment discussions, so it's important to have a vet you like and have confidence in. Ask how often he treats ringworm and if he's aware of (and is using) Dr. Karen Moriello's treatment recommendations. As you've read here, she's the expert in the field and is doing amazing work that's saving cats lives in shelters (euthanasia often being the alternative) that translates well for easier and more effective treatments for our adopted cats. Ask iff he's aware of the new quick PCR culture and that can give results in a few days instead of weeks. If your vet is aware of all of this, you don't need to worry. If he's never heard of Karen Moriello, you may have a problem!  I'm not sure where you live or what resources you can access, but sometimes it makes sense to find a different vet.... Google Dr. Moriello's work and you will learn a lot of useful information. She's also kind of comforting, at least compared to googling anything else about ringworm — which I do NOT recommend! Don't read scary things about bleaching your entire world and avoid magic products that you can buy to "cure" ringworm. Stick with Dr. M.

4. Oral treatments are powerful and often expensive, and because of that, and potential side effects, it doesn't make sense to give them to a cat unless it has a real diagnosis of ringworm. So hang on and wait until that does or doesn't happen. If Sheldon has ringworm, then he will absolutely need an oral med along with dips.... and cleaning for you. You didn't say how old Sheldon is, but there are different meds for kittens and for larger cats. Some of the best are non-generic Sporanox (mine was liquid) and generic terbinafine. (You DO NOT want griseofulvin; vets shouldn't be using it anymore because of the side effects and the fact that there are more effective, safer, and less expensive drugs.)  These drugs are safe at the correct dosages... my wonderful vet got the dosage wrong for our cats once, so I believe that checking yours with a vet pharmacist or a second experienced vet is a good idea.

5. Don't feel so bad about your boy. Try being more positive and take the long view here. This is temporary, and it's only a fungus, not something fatak!  Even pretending to be positive can have a surprising effect on you and your cats! Just keep giving him and everyone else lots of love and remember how lucky he is to have a great home with you. Lots of shelters put down animals with ringworm. You may well have saved his life. Yes, ringworm treatment is stressful, but you caught on very early, so your other animals may well only need one preventive dip, not the whole long cycle. And that cycle can go a lot faster even for Sheldon if you can use the PCR cultures instead of the old ones that take many weeks.

Best of luck to you and hang in there! 

Hi there, I'ms sorry you are dealing with ringworm in TWO places. Ugh! But I think you can stop worrying about your vac, at least. Your one HEPA filter vac can be used everywhere. It will trap and seal spores and you don't need to worry about them spreading around your house once they are in the bag; that's the point of the filtration system. Clean the vac by wiping it down as you do with everything else. Throw out the bags when you need to. Replace the filter when you have clear cultures and your cats are declared cured.

Here's hoping that all of this will be over in a few months and you will be left with healthy cats, strange memories, and a very good vacuum cleaner.

Thanks for getting back to me so soon!
Sorry, just needing a bit more info. I bought a hoover wind tunnel anniversary edition, it's the best I could afford. Do I need to clean the hoses after use or the beater bar? So frustrated. Any help is greatly appreciated

And one more question if I could. I have to isolate my 2 cats and my do. I only have one room to do it. And my question is, how do I exit the room without contaminating the r

Hi mamakitty,

I'm sorry but I'm not familiar with that vacuum cleaner. If I were you, I'd wipe down the exterior of the vac, and not worry about the inside. Eventually, the spores are going to end up inside the bag.

It really helps to think of spores as being like dust mites, since both float around in the air around us all the time, and require concentrations to cause problems. Don't think of ringworm spores as germs. All you need to do is gather them up in your vac, or on cleaning clothes, and rinse those away. 

Did you read this site's helpful link about ringworm housecleaning?

It goes with this site's main article about ringworm.

Here's one more very good source about ringworm

Not everyone isolates their cats. If you have a small apartment you can easily clean, and if they've already had the run of it for weeks before you realized there was ringworm, it may be less stressful for everyone if you let them run freely and just keep vacuuming and cleaning. (If you don't have carpets, this is a whole lot easier.) If you have a big house with carpeting and other animals and kids, and if the ringworm is pretty serious, it may make more sense to isolate them. It can depend on their stress level and yours as far as the isolation, and how much cleaning will be required.

We had four cats in an 800 square foot apartment. Two kittens had ringworm, and we and our two old Persians never got it. We did not isolate because we couldn't. Instead we dipped and medicated all four cats (two preventively) and cleaned. 

If you have dipped all of your animals at least once in lime-sulfur solution, and done a thorough job, they will be much less contagious going forward. Do it two or three times, and you may no longer need to isolate them at all — especially if either you or they are finding it stressful. A two-week round of medication is also often considered enough to make a cat non-contagious.

Hope this is helpful. The links can help you, too!

Thank you so much for the information and advice! I did isolate my two cats at home as well as my dog. She has a small lesion on the side of her mouth which may be allergies and maybe ringworm the vet is testing it. If anyone can help me I do have a question how do you keep from contaminating the rest of the house entering and exiting the isolation room. I have carpet everywhere and it's a rental so I can't change that. So far I've just went in the room and then when I came out I vacuumef, but what about what's on my clothing and anybody have any good ideas on what I can do? What do I need to change for clothing everytime I enter and exit the room should I wear shoes? I'm clueless any help you can give me I would sure appreciate

Hi again! It sounds like you are doing all the right things to care for your cats and dog, and they are lucky to have you! Please try to take a little time  to read the links about ringworm I sent you in my last message. They will help you understand just what kind of Invisible Enemy you're dealing with. It's not a virus or bacteria, so you don't need to go full "haz-mat" — especially if the animals don't have severe infestations, and provided you don't have anyone living in the house with a compromised immune system (infant, fragile elderly person, severe illness, etc.). If you are all generally healthy, you can relax a little. Ringworm is an airborne fungus, so think of it as being like pollen or dust mites. It's floating freely in the air. Everywhere, all the time. There's just too much of it sometimes and ringworm develops. Rather than try to kill it, we try to clean it up where it gathers in higher concentrations — on dusty surfaces, in dirty corners and in fur  "tumbleweeds" — so a very thorough house-cleaning cranked up a notch or two to include every surface should go a long way toward solving the problem. 

While there are others here who have isolated their animals, I didn't, so I'm not the best person to advise you on that. Personally, I don't believe you need to be super obsessive when you leave the quarantine room. Wash your hands. Wear an old shirt when you go into the room to hold and play with your cats and put it in the wash when you leave. Maybe wear slippers in there and leave them at the door. If you are keeping that room clean, you don't need to worry that you are taking large amounts of spores into the house with you. When you start dipping the animals, they will be much less contagious as well.

The only thing that worries me a little is that you have carpet in that room. Keep vacuuming often, and consider hiring a company to do a heavy-duty steam-cleaning as soon as you can end the quarantine.

Hang in there!