Feline Herpes Virus (FVR) Advice

Well, as so many rescue cats have herpes, there are simply heaps of homes with cats mixed with those that have it and those that don't. We have 8 cats, all rescues, and only one has herpes. It's nine years since we rescued her, and no one else has ever contracted the virus. I wouldn't think twice about bringing a cat with herpes virus into a home with cats that don't already have it.

And your vet clearly doesn't know much about the illness. Are there other vets in the area? Seems like it's time for a new one if that's an option. I don't know the condition of the eyes. Most will clear up, as you can see from the above posts earlier in the thread. Some do not. Our kitty was so bad off when we rescued her that she needed to have one eye removed, but the damage had already been done. We were able to save the other eye, and she does just fine. Some kitties have had to have both eyes removed, and blind kitties get around just fine if you spend a little time learning about their needs.

Your vet, I'm sorry to say, does not appear to be at all current on treatment of herpes. And if he thinks blind cats don't do just fine and make great pets, he or she is grossly misinformed.

Thank you so much for the info. I foster and so she has been here but quarrentined in another room.

He said it is very painful .

Her eyes look fine but they are just a little cloudy.

He said she will go blind in 3-4 yrs.

and that she will be in pain the whole time.

I give her lysime everyday but he said i should put a lubricant

gel in her eye genteal eye cream

any thoughts on this?

I appreciate your feed back a lot by the way.

catkitty said:

Thank you so much for the info. I foster and so she has been here but quarrentined in another room.

He said it is very painful .

Her eyes look fine but they are just a little cloudy.

He said she will go blind in 3-4 yrs.

and that she will be in pain the whole time.

I give her lysime everyday but he said i should put a lubricant

gel in her eye genteal eye cream

any thoughts on this?

I appreciate your feed back a lot by the way.

Click to expand...

I would personally get a second opinion from another vet.

Misty8723 said:

I would personally get a second opinion from another vet.

Click to expand...

It really seems like you need a vet more knowledgeable about herpes and eyes. :nod: DId he prescribe an ointment? Which one does he recommend? There are SO many options for treatment. Honestly, I can't imagine a vet saying it's causing her pain and sending her home - or recommending killing her over simply having both eyes removed. Perhaps it's a surgery you or the rescue don't want or can't afford to pay. That's different. But here's a link to another thread where a kitty had to have both eyes removed. The surgery was successful, and kitty is healthy and happy and doing great! http://www.thecatsite.com/t/236013/kitten-with-no-eyes

This is what our Flowerbelle looked like at various stages. She did not act like she was in pain, she did not rub her eyes, and our vet said she was not in pain. :dk:

After almost 3 weeks in the hospital after being rescued from a liquor store parking lot, and 2 days before she came home with us:



They tried putting antibiotic ointment in her eye and stitching it closed for a week or so:



It didn't work:



We fought for almost seven months to keep her bad eye, get it fixed up. She required medicating 11x a day (with all the pills, supplements, drops, ointments).

This was her eye the day before her surgery to have it removed:




After we had it removed, her energy levels went up about a million percent. This is what she looks like now (well, this was taken in November):

catkitty said:

Hi

I was wondering if its safe to have a herpes + cat with my cat?

Click to expand...

I have a cat who my vet thinks has herpes, he used to have recurring URIs as a kitten. As he became an adult the infections decreased and he is now 4 and has not had one since he was a "teenager" not even when under stress. None of my other cats seemed to have caught it or at least they did not have any similar problems. The lysine definitely helps also, my vet had me do a maintenance dose of 250 mg twice a day and for flare-ups, 500 mg twice a day.

thank you so much

it wasn't about the money

she had those ultra drops or whatever they are put in

and the lights shown on it and he said there were ulcers and

it was very painful.

I don't want to put her down.

I just lost my daughter then one month later her 14 yr old

cat and i just can't do it but i don't want to kill my other cat.

Let me see if I can find a foto of her.

I will take her to another vet

Im so glad I found this site.

oops they won't let me post a foto.

Catkitty, wondering what country you are in - tend to assume the US without any clues but could be wrong.

Another vet is well worth doing, and I know of at least one cat that had both eyes removed because of this sort of problem that had a good quality of life afterwards. 

im in Florida US

Oh no! I am so sorry to hear about your daughter and your granddaughter.

what actual bach flower remedies would you specifically advise for this? my cat Jimmy-James probably has late onset feline herpes virus (scabbing/bleeding on nose and around the eyes by tear ducts, plus problems in mouth - had to have almost all his teeth out due to it), am using l-lysine but only 250mg as its a big squish of it and he doesnt like it as it is! cannot imagine how i would get two squirts a day down him...so am looking for other alternatives. do you just mean the bach rescue remedy or the animal one, or more specific ones and if so, which?  i have found some other make flower essences on the internet purportedly for boosting an animal's immune system but they are in america (im in the uk) and they are both costly to buy and to ship,whereas bach remedies are readily available and more affordable here. I have had some excellent advice already on another website but was interested when i came across this mention of using flower essence remedies too. thank you.

Janeliker said:

what actual bach flower remedies would you specifically advise for this? my cat Jimmy-James probably has late onset feline herpes virus (scabbing/bleeding on nose and around the eyes by tear ducts, plus problems in mouth - had to have almost all his teeth out due to it), am using l-lysine but only 250mg as its a big squish of it and he doesnt like it as it is! cannot imagine how i would get two squirts a day down him...so am looking for other alternatives. do you just mean the bach rescue remedy or the animal one, or more specific ones and if so, which?  i have found some other make flower essences on the internet purportedly for boosting an animal's immune system but they are in america (im in the uk) and they are both costly to buy and to ship,whereas bach remedies are readily available and more affordable here. I have had some excellent advice already on another website but was interested when i came across this mention of using flower essence remedies too. thank you.

Click to expand...

I'm confused, is your lysine in liquid form? I've never seen it that way. Usually it's a powder, or a capsule of powder. From what you discribe, it sounds like he needs a higher dose for a while.

The 250mg. 2XS/day is for maintenance. If he is having a flare up, I would double it, as many of us do. 500mg. 2XS/day usually for at least a couple of weeks, or until flare up subsides.

The Bach Flower remedies:  Yes, the Bach remedies are some of the best & first around, so if they are available to you, that's what I would buy. You can trust the quality!

 Rescue Remedy is the formula for stress. If you can get the one specifically made for animals, he should tolerate it better, because it's in a glycerin base, instead of an alcohol base. Either will be fine, the one for animals will just taste better to him. I just put a couple of drops on a couple of treats. This way I know he's gotten it.

I hope that answered your question.

Vermont Pet Naturals makes an LLysine chewable product .( I have smashed up people tablets and put powder in wet food with good results.) My cats have had the calming ones and the UT Support ones & they LOVE them. The Bach Flower Rescue Remedy can be applied to inside of ear as well as oral .Had a vet do that for my stressed out cat at the office and she calmed right down. I am trying the Spirit Essences. I have used one( Foster Cat Remedy) on a  fearful rescued caged cat waiting for adoption and she is much calmer but still alert. Seems to work. You can just rub it on them and it doesn't have to be ingested. I have done both, oral & topical.

Yea, I just open a L-lysine capsule & sprinkle it in his food.  I didn't know putting the Rescue Remedy in the inside of the ear lobe would work.

Good tip!

The l-lysine I use is specifically for animals and called Enisyl-F (made in France I think) and yes it is liquid-y, more like a very loose gel.It's what I was recommended to use by the vet - we are in the UK.  I did look at the powdered l-lysine on the web that was available here and it was all for human consumption (I have put all this somewhere else on here, but not sure where!) so didn't order it, but did ask someone on here what make/s of the powdered form they could recommend for animal use, and whether it has any taste (the gel has a very very strong fishy smell and I presume taste too) or, if so, whether their cats still found it palatable.  Jimmy does NOT find the gel particularly palatable, therefore it would be very hard to give him more than the one squeeze (250mg) I already do daily - very messy too, for both of us.  So I'm still looking for advice about that.

But thank you for the advice about the Bach Rescue Remedy, as I thought it would be easiest to get and administer that one, and I will get the one for animals and try it in his mouth AND his ear!  I'll keep researching the others but fear anything from the USA is going to be too expensive due to the shipping costs.

Thanks again! from us both
 

Thank you for this. I have since been researching the suppliers you mentioned but because they are in America and I'm in England, the shipping is far too high to justify buying anything from them - and they don't seem to supply here wholesale.  However, it spurred (purred??) me on to research what was available here in the powdered or powdered capsules department re l-lysine and have come across one or two suppliers - although not saying for pets I'm sure they would be suitable. Just honing it down now - also have found some l-lysine-containing creams and a stick that I may use as a supplement to dab onto the sore scabby bits on his nose particularly and near his eyes, though would have to be careful there. All these things are affordable so I will try and see if using the capsules emptied onto food is more palatable for him - I truly hope so. The gel is a bit of a nightmare to be honest and I find it so hard to 'force' him (gently) to take it even once a day.

Have found it interesting that l-lysine seems to be generally only available/given in the powdered or capsule form opened in the USA for animals and yet in the UK and maybe also Europe too it seems to be only generally available/given in the gel form or also I see a paste form which, though I'm sure is easier to administer, is twice as expensive!

and so to bed...(J-j is already there...)

Enisyl is actually made in Canada, which is why you may have thought it was French! I use the paste - it is expensive but easy to administer and there is no waste - Wellington loves it, and I can squirt it from the tube straight into his mouth with no problem. He has 2 squirts daily. It is cheaper online, and I buy it 4 tubes at a time to save postage. If you want, I can email you the link.

I used to give him the tablet form, sold for humans, a half tablet (500mg) per day, but although he is easy to pill and lysine has no taste, it was not pleasanr for him or me. But as long as you get the dose right, there is no harm in using human grade.

It has made a huge difference to him and he rarely gets a flare-up now, though I wash his eyes daily to prevent build-up of tears.

I have a year-old rescue cat with herpes.  She's had several outbreaks since we got her and all were due to the typical stressful stuff like new home (when we adopted her), surgery (spay), and new cat in the house (our 3rd amiga).

The vet prescribed anti-viral drops, antibacterial ointment, and finally antiviral pills when the corneal ulcer wasn't clearing.
The anti-viral drops have been very painful for her.  Can't recall which, but one made the tissue around her eye blood red and she was screaming for 15 mins.  Horrifying to say the least.  We'd been giving it to her for several days and she'd just rub the eye afterwards, then suddenly the irritation was massive.  I kept that bottle with a big NO on it.

The vet also prescribed antiviral pills (Famcyclovir).  I got it through the local pharmacy (vet doesn't carry them and definitely call around for prices...Target had a good price after chatting with the pharmacist who said he could apply a $25 discount...blah blah.,...then I called CVS and the discounted Target price was the regular CVS price!!).  The "Fam" was not cheap (almost $40 I believe), but she responded well to the pills (no tummy troubles) and even looked forward to getting the pill bit wrapped in cheese or Greenies Pill Pockets (thank God for Pill Pockets!).  Her eye responded well to the pills.

The ointment was several times a day which got tedious, but it didn't seem to bother her.

So we try to focus on avoiding outbreaks by managing stress in the home (good for us too!) and through nutrition (good quality food, daily lysine snacks).  We tried giving her lysine powder on her food but she tired of that.  She now gets lysine snacks daily.  The Vetri-Lysine brand is her favorite and she even tries to steal them from our other cat!  The Enisyl snacks she ate for a while, then started to refuse them.  All snacks have been ordered via Amazon as they are much cheaper than the vet.  When she starts her rapid fire sneezing, I will give her an extra lysine snack or two a day (ok'd by vet) and so far that's prevented a new outbreak.

When she gets her next outbreak, I anticipate giving her anti-viral pills and skipping the antiviral drops if possible.

Lysine is meant to be ingested as a dietary supplement, not as a topically applied product.  Lysine interferes with virus replication.  These products have intructions on how much to give daily - please follow those instructions and stray from it only if ok'd by a vet.

Before forcing any supplements on a pet, try using a little creativity to get it in them - try different forms (gel, powder, snacks, pills), try mixing it in food or snacks, trying wrapping in cheese if your pet likes cheese (Jazz will eat ANYTHING in cheese, my other cat Nola hates cheese).  If leftover or rejected products bother you, note they are often welcome by pet rescue groups if they are still in good condition.  Try different pill pockets or wraps that are sold at good pet shops (Greenies chicken and salmon pill pockets have been a  life saver for our cat Gypsy - literally).  Ultimately, effective care of your pet will make you both feel better!

A radical option is to completely remove both eyes, or one at a time as they get past the point of being useful.  There are many blind kitties or kitties who have lost eyes due to whatever reason.  There is absolutely NO reason to put your kitty down for this.
 

I have two cats that have FHV flare-ups. Silly has had an eye removed due to the virus, and Julie has one eye that gets runny.  I bought the Now Lysine from Amazon. 16 dollars for a pound of pure l-lysine powder. that is 822 doses of 500mg.  I give all 5 of mine 1/8 teaspoon morning and night, sprinkled on their wet food.  It is just so easy to give.  I will never go back to pills or Enisyl-F.

I always wonder why more vets don't prescribe Idox (Idoxuridine) or more people aren't aware of this.

I can't begin to tell you just how many cat eyes I have managed to save and completely heal with this amazing stuff, eyes that surely would have needed removing otherwise.

Our (my rescue group's) vet supplies us with the Idox drops mainly during kitten season, which is when we most often need it.

If your vet doesn't use this, I would find one who does. It's liquid gold for herpes eyes.