New Kitten gave Old Cat Herpes

I have a cat that is about 11 years old, Gonzo. I decided he probably could use a friend and went to the local shelter and adopted the sweetest 8 month old kitten, Beaker.

The problem is I soon found out Beaker had an Upper Respiratory Infection. Just lots of sneezing mostly but didn't seem to bad. Well I took her to the vet and he gave her a shot of antibiotics and steroids and she got better. Well about a week later Gonzo starts sneezing and coughing and then a day later his eye is just running like someone turned on a faucet, so to the bet we go. Before this he had never been sick.... Ever!

I already feel terrible for doing this to him, I mean I brought this into the house and exposed him to it. But my bigger question is the elephant in the room, the vet and everything I have read say he got Feline Herpes from the new cat.

I have been reading everything I can on the internet and I have literally given myself an anxiety attack.

So for my questions...

Is this going to be a regular occurrence like all the time?

If one gets a flare up will the other get a flare up too?

Does Lysine really help?

Is the first "sickness" the worst and the flare ups will be minor?

I have tons more questions but I will leave it at those, any insight you have I would greatly appreciate

I feel terrible for doing this to my buddy and I just want to believe the internet is making it sound worse that it really is.

Thanks,

Jarrod

I couldnt figure out how to edit my thread but I did have one more question, could it just be something other than the herpes virus? is there anything that causes runny milky eyes?

I am actually sick to my stomach thinking about what I have done to him by trying to just get him a friend.

They are both on lysine twice a day but it doesn't seem to do a thing

I had the same feelings as you did when I brought in a stray to recover from spay surgery and she infected 3 out of 4 of my inside cats. I had a house full of sneezing, drooling and miserable cats! 

But don't panic!

The stray and my cats all had the initial infection only once and haven't had a recurrence since (This all happened in June). Yes, it is true that it can be become a chronic condition in some cats and once they contract the herpes virus they always have it but they won't always show outbreaks. They say it most often does in times of stress. Most indoor cats live a pretty stress free life!

It's possible your cat may get a runny nose or eyes or sneeze occasionally (I panic when this I hear a sneeze now) but in my experience it will not even come close to the initial first outbreak. And also no, I don't believe that if one has a minor outbreak that the other will necessarily "catch" it. I don't really get why that is because obviously they caught it the first time but that's what I read.

L-Lysine can help and it certainly can not hurt so I would continue to give it to them if it makes you feel better. I know it made me feel like I was doing something. Whether it helped or not I can't say and while I still have the treats, I hardly give it them consistently enough for it to make a real difference.

It's very common for shelter cats to have the herpes virus. What happened to me though was that I believe my feral caught it while waiting for days in the clinic to be spayed and BEFORE she was vaccinated for the virus. Which totally sucks but it happens.

Any questions, please ask. I was in your exact same boat.

Thank you so much for your response, it does make me feel a lot better knowing its not going to be a nonstop thing forever. I think right now I just need to stay off the internet and just listen to the vet and wait to see what happens.

Beaker, the cat I brought home is fine but Gonzo only shows symptoms of runny eyes, no cough and not really any sneezing to be heard. Friday will be 2 weeks so I guess that makes 10 days in and not really seeing any improvement on the the eyes other than the drainage is way more clear than it was at the beginning. How long did the initial infection take to subside. He just looks so miserable and I hate that other than the ointment in his eyes there really isn't much I can do.

The cat who brought in the infection recovered before everyone because obviously she showed signs of infection first. I'd say that mine took generally about 10 days to recover completely. An antibiotic from the vet seems to help (I ended up taking all of them in). He also prescribed eye drops for the one who was displaying that symptom. In hindsight, it was interesting to see how in manifested differently in all of them. Some were worse then others and it lasted longer in others.

I wouldn't worry too bad if Gonzo hasn't fully recovered yet. It seems he is making progress and it is great his eye liquid is clear. I feel he will be perfectly fine in due time.

And I think you have it right when you say you should stop reading the internet! I like to be as informed as possible and did the exact same thing and also freaked out. It made it seem like herpes is always a chronic condition but I don't believe that to be the case. There are also stories on this forum of people who have like 6 cats and only one cat has herpes and even occasionally has outbreaks and the other cats have never got infected. And they even groom each other. So it really all depends.

I have to say that is one benefit I had bringing in Beaker, within hours of bringing her home the 2 were already trying to be friends, now after 2 and half weeks they sleep together and groom each other.

Here is a pic of them after about the first week and day 1 of the infection for gonzo. I would post what gonzo looks like right now but nobody really needs to see it, he's a mess :-(

View media item 248369

Aww! They are so cute! Thanks for sharing. Poor Gonzo.

How lucky! Only two of my cats out of the four will sleep together and groom each other. Once in awhile. They still have their intense disagreements though!

Well we just got back from the vet and it wasnt as good as I hoped, it appears the virus is gone, and they are 100% sure it was the herpes virus and gonzo is over the flu, but he got a secondary infection of what the vet said was the worst case of conjunctivitis (pink eye) hes ever seen. So we got a new ointment to add in with the other and see if we cant clear it up in 5 days or so.

it was kinda scary at first, because my vet went to get another vet that works in the building for a secondary opinion and then the 2 of them left and came back with a third vet for a tertiary opinion.

Gonzos eyes aka Snot Face are just fire red on the insides.

with all the bad news I figured I would post a pic i just snapped tonight. They do everything together. In the mission to get him a friend at least I go that right.

Beaker Left Gonzo Right

Awwww.  Those pics are just too cute!  Apparently they are meant for each other - bumps in the road aside!

I use L-lysine. It absolved the sneezing in about a week completely. I noticed that if my cat got sick with something else, the sneezing would start up. For example, a urinary infection caused a flare up. Now I just know that if one of my babies is sick, I up the lysine dose.

Hope your fur babies feel better soon.

Honestly, URIs are so common I imagine it is entirely possible that Gonzo already had the virus (even if he never showed symptoms in the time he's lived with you) and when you brought Beaker in he experienced an outbreak just due to the stress of a new housemate (and then caught the 2ndary infection in his eye). Cat herpes is a bit like human cold sores - when they have the virus it stays with them for life but is latent between outbreaks (often triggered by some kind of stressor). So if one of your cats has another outbreak, the other cat won't "catch" it (because they already have it), but I think its helpful to understand that any stress which may have triggered an outbreak in one cat may also be affecting the other so it may appear to be "spreading" between them when really they're both experiencing an outbreak of an existing infection. However URIs can also be caused by calicivirus which may have very similar symptoms and can cause a new infection in a cat already infected with herpes, so its not like either cat is immune to any new cat flu infections (but if the only cats they have contact with are each other then new infections aren't really a concern once they've spread what they've got between each other haha).

I think the enrichment of having a new buddy, which looks obvious in the photos, far outweighs a temporary illness now :3 The flu will pass but the new friend is there to stay!

Well after 3 days on the new ointment Gonzos eyes are almost all the way back to normal, the drainage has all but stopped and his eyes are just a light pink now. I can tell he feels a lot better.

I found 2 dry foods that have Lysine in them already so I can keep it in their system without having to worry about forgetting to give them one of the treats.

Purina One Chicken and Rice


and

Blue Buffalo Indoor Health


Basically they are exactly the same ingredients in the same order, I did read that Purina has been going toe to toe with with Blue Buffalo and they are basically replicating everything they offer an doing so at a cheaper rate. I ended up going with the Purina and found it on amazon for 23 bucks for a 16 pound bag.