Siamese Cat with URI (upper respiratory infection)

Hi,

I've had Max my siamese cat for 3 years now, and I would love to finally rid him of his runny nose and sneezes

with mucous sometimes comming out of his nose.

I was prescribed Lysene and Amoxycillin a long time ago, but the doctor said the chances of it curing Max were minimal to zilch.

He said the infection is in his brain, and hard to cure.

He's very healthy otherwise.  No issues with his eyes, or other symptoms associated with the most common causes like Feline calicivirus and feline herpesvirus.

I read about a new product to help that began with the letter "Z", but I cannot for the life of me google it and find it again.

Does anybody know this medicine's Name i'm refering to that begins with the letter Z ?

I appreciate any and all replies.

Here's max, the cat i'm talking about.   He's a great cat !

So he most likely has feline herpes which affects a kitty's immune system.  I have a herpes positive kitty and she also gets sneezes and upper respiratory issues.  If any of the discharge is yellow or green, get to the vet and ask them to run a culture & sensitivity test to see if there is an underlying infection.  The culture will tell them what kind of infection you're dealing with (viral or bacterial) and the sensitivity test will tell the vet which med will best treat it.  My girl had an underlying psuedomonas infection and the vet put her on Zenequin.  However, you don't want to be throwing antibiotics at your kitty without first knowing what's going on and what medicine will best treat it.  You might also find that eye drops will help. 

The first thing you want to do is work on his overall health. Work on transitioning to a mostly wet grain-free diet.  The arginine in grains causes the herpes virus to replicate.  Add Lysine back to his diet.  If he's actively flaring up, then give him 1000mg a day divided into two doses.  Lysine stops the replication of the herpes virus, or at least slows it down.  Since lysine is an amino acid it is flushed out of the body through urination, so that's why you need to give the dose twice a day.  I buy the powdered kind from Vitacost online.  Just 1/4 t equals about 500 mg.  It dissolves easily in water, so I add a little bit of water to my cats' wet food and mix it in.

Herpes tends to flare when kitties are under stress, so work on keeping your house on a routine as much as possible.  What may not seem stressful to you might be stressful for him.  Even something as simple as not cleaning the litter box once can upset your kitty.  Kitties thrive on routine and structure.  I run Feliway diffusers in my house 24/7 to help with stress levels.  They do help my kitties.  My herpes girl is more sneezy if I forget to change them and my male getting gets more aggressive when I forget to change the diffuser on time. 

Lastly, a lot of his issues may be triggered by seasonal allergies and the changing of the seasons.  Talk to your vet about a daily antihistamine for him to see if that helps some of the problems.

Thanks for all the helpful information.

When i got max, he probably contracted the uri from the other cats at the animal shelter.

Again, he's very healthy otherwise.  And he sneezes with the mucous like 3 or 4 times a day.

Going to google that zenequin your talking about, and will speak with the vet and ask him what else i can give him.

Thanks for the reply !

Zenequin is a high powered antibiotic and you don't want to give it to him without first testing to see what he's dealing with.  Kitties can develop an immunity to medications so you want to be careful when you use them. Don't just "try" a med to see if it takes care of the problem.  Find out what the problem is and then use the correct medicine to treat the problem so you're not stuck in a cycle of medicate, get well, stop medicine, two to four weeks later get sick again.