gingivitis/swollen lymph/swollen salivatory gland in 4 mo old kitten

Well I've noticed that my kitten has had bad breath the last week or so, I didn't think much of it. My mom was petting her & noticed that her lymph nodes in her neck were swollen. I took her to the vet & the vet said the big bump is her salivatory glad which was swollen but her lymph glands were swollen a little as well.

As she was looking at her she looked in her mouth & saw that all her gums were red. She said that she has gingivitis & it could be an autoimmune disease. She started spouting off so many different things that I didn't understand (she is a Dr you know) & the bottom line was she could have calicivirus, feline hiv, feline herpes, fiv, bartonella, fip or felv. Since I got her from a shelter & she did get a set of kitten shots, my vet explained that she could have had something after the shots were administered. 

So now it's off to do a $300 blood panel that tests for basically everything under the sun. As I've been researching more & more, I was reading through a post about fish & Stomatitis. I started my kitties on an Omega 3 supplement a few weeks back. I am thinking of stopping it to see if anything clears up. Has anyone had any issue like this before? I don't know if I should go ahead with the blood panel or if there's a way to just test for Stomatitis. I will research that as well.

Thanks

How old is your kitten?  Is she teething?  That can cause bad breath, and a lot of folks are writing about that recently because this year's kittens are all reaching that age where baby teeth are being replaced with adult teeth.  That's usually complete by age 7 months.  There is definitely a "teething bad breath" that goes with each new tooth that comes in, and it's not unusual to have a swollen salivary gland either.  If she comes from a shelter, she has been exposed to lots of germs, whether or not she herself ever was sick.  She may have had calici (they can have mouth ulcers and inflamed gums from that, calici has many variations, like flu, some really nasty, some much less.)  She could even get inflamed gums or mouth ulcers from the vaccine, but that will pass.  Their immune systems aren't well developed when they are young either.  If she was not tested for feline leukemia (FeLV) and feline aids (FIV), then she should be tested for that, although my vet says that tests done when they are under 3 months of age are not reliable, and you should always re-test later.  When we get litters in with mama cats, we test the mama.  If mama is negative, then the kittens will be negative as long as they aren't exposed to anyone but their mama.

If it were me, I would definitely test for FeLV & FIV (it's a combined test anyhow) and as long as that's negative, don't go crazy with testing her for everything under the sun.  If it's positive, just keep her away from other cats and retest in a little while.  Neither one of those are a death sentence but can be passed to other cats through saliva, mainly through biting and breaking the skin.  They are not airborne viruses.  Give her some time to grow and develop her immune system, and also get her through the teething time,  As long as she's eating, playing and purring, she's doing just fine.  

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http://www.vcahospitals.com/main/pe...ained-deciduous-teeth-baby-teeth-in-cats/2247

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thanks for the response. I got her from a shelter & they said she was 3 mo old. They had her for less than a week. They gave one kitten booster shot , dewormed her & tested for FELV = negative.

So now she is about 4 mo old. Her gums are terribly red (they look really bad!) & the bad breath has come in the last week of so. I have been feeding more fish product then usual, I started about 2 weeks ago. After I read that other post about  fish & Stomatitis, I have stopped all fish. It's a funny thing to read about cat health, everyone tells you salmon oil or some other omega 3 & then it turns out to be an irritant!

I have really been thinking about this & if by Sun (that's when my vet appt is) her mouth isn't even the slightest bit better, I will get the blood test done. If something comes back positive, at least I will know what I'm fighting.