Treating Calicivirus - any advice??

Hi there,

Our 11 year old kitty, Lyla, who we adopted from a shelter 2.5 months ago, has a severe case of calicivirus, contracted at the overcrowded shelter. She's had the occasional eye discharge and sneezing fits, but the main way the virus manifests itself is in chronic bacterial infections in her mouth. It's mainly in the roof of her mouth and her gums, so really hard to treat. She's had 13 teeth taken out, and a course of Interferon to try and boost her immune system, as well as a few courses of antibiotics and a cortisone injection to try and make her more comfortable, but she's in a lot of pain. One vet told us to wipe her gums with Dentohexin, but this was very distressing for her and only seemed to make things much worse. The only thing that seemed to help was a morphine-based injection that gave her comfort for about a day and a half. The vets are saying that i can give her Metacam to ease the pain, but a) I'm not keen on using Metacam having read such terrible things about it, and b) have you ever tried to get a syringe of bitter medicine into a cat's mouth when they have severe mouth inflammation and pain?? She's really worrying us because she's struggling to eat, losing weight, and spends most of the day hiding under the bed. When she does manage to eat, it's only to lick the gravy of wet food, so I'm worried she's going to become malnourished since she must be missing out on a lot of minerals and vitamins.

Does anyone have any experience of treating a cat in a similar situation? I feel like we are on a carousel of providing her with a day or two of relief before she gets even worse. She's getting tired, and her quality of life is deteriorating. When she feels well, she's the sweetest little thing, but when she's in chronic pain her personality changes, she doesn't want to be touched, and it's just breaking my heart. Help!

Jade

You can get the opiate pain killer in oral form, it's called buprenex or some form of that name.  I'm not sure if they are different medicines or different companies.  It does have to be given in the cheek pockets so that it is absorbed through the gums.  

I unfortunately not had experience with this or stomatitis.  I know others here have dealt with stomatitis.  I know that the anti-virals presently available don't seem to have much effect on the calicivirus, so treatment is pretty much supportive and treating any bacterial infections.

workedsoHi, I'm so sorry your kitty is going through this. I've battled this with two of mine. They had severe stomatitis. This is excruciating. With my first one , they gave her a steroid shot, antibiotic and pain shot. The long lasting steroid worked wonders. The second one, I took to a holistic vet who also gave her a short acting steroid shot, sub q fluids, pain shot and 5 pain shots to administer at home. Worked great. Orals meds don't work for mouth pain. It's too traumatic for them but the pain shots administered at home worked
so well. I hope that helps. I'm praying for your sweetie. They need it.

Is it calicivirus or stomatitis? Or both? One is viral...the other inflammatory/autoimmune. If viral, you want immune boosters. With inflammatory/autoimmune, you want immune modulators/suppressors. If it's both...what a predicament. 

Personally, I would not use Metacam. Too many risks.

My Boo has calicivirus, but he really only had one bad flare with an ulcer on his tongue and would not eat. They put a Fentanyl patch on his side; a slow-releasing pain patch that lasts for three days. I suspect these can't be use long term; they are very sticky and would irritate the skin. I do give him l-lysine daily. Although it's not meant for calicivirus, I'd like to think is has helped. He also gets a daily multivitamin. When I think he's going to flare, I also give him Vetri-DMG by Vetri-Science, an immune booster.

I've only recently come across Duralactin/Microlactin for inflammatory conditions with neutrophil infiltration. It is mentioned on this JustAnswer page for stomatitis: http://www.justanswer.com/cat-health/4z1th-common-treatment-stomatitis-cats.html. But I don't know how well it works this condition.

Well the definition of stomatitis is inflamation of the stoma ( opening). Now it can have many many causes. A bad tooth, or herpes etc.
Whatever the cause you need to treat the pain and then figure out what you're dealing with. I personally had stomatitis ( infected tooth) and the pain was excruciating. It lasted 2 weeks and I was on the verge of suicide. Not that I wanted to die but the pain was unbearable. Thank God for pain medication!

Thanks all for your replies - I really appreciate it.

She was diagnosed with stomatitis late last year but we got that under control with the tooth extractions. At the moment, it is the calicivirus that is the problem. The vet says it's an extremely virulent case, and the shelter is apparently notorious for harbouring the disease which is why she has got such a stubborn and aggressive strain of it. We've tried a course of immune system boosting therapy (Virbagen/Inteferon) with no improvement.

The only thing that helped her pain was the opiate, but the vet (rightly) says that this isn't a long term solution - we can't take her in every 2 days to drug her up on morphine. Our last resort, which we tried at the vets this morning, was a Cortisone shot, which should hopefully reduce the inflammation, though it will potentially reduce her auto-immunity further, and allow the virus to get stronger. But reduced inflammation should mean reduced pain, and the vet thinks it's our last chance before we have to prepare ourselves for the difficult decision of whether she has enough quality of life to put her through further treatments (I burst into tears at this point).

Thank you so much for the suggestions - I'm going to investigate holistic options, and Duralactin/Microlactin and Vetri-DMG.

We promised her a better life when we adopted her from that horrible shelter and I'm determined to do absolutely everything in my power to try and get her well.

There is one other possibility but it is very expensive.  It's a drug called   Polyprenyl Immunostimulant.  It has been used for stubborn viruses and recently has shown some success with dry FIP.  When I said expensive, it is very expensive, around $400 every two weeks.

Thanks Denice - I'm going to look into whether that's available where I live.

Jade Adams said:

Thanks Denice - I'm going to look into whether that's available where I live.

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My holistic vet did wonders for our little girl!
I wish her well!

Hello All,

Just to give you a quick update - Lyla has responded incredibly well to the steroids and is back to her old self. She's eating, playing, and even scratching the rug she's not usually allowed to scratch! I'm a bit worried about how long the effects will last, but at the moment, she's a happy kitty and I'm a happy mummy!

Thank you all for your advice - I've located suppliers of some of the treatments mentioned and will be discussing them with our vet next week.

Jade

Great to hear!