Cat Herpes

I was wondering if anyone else has a cat with herpes it isn't like herpes in humans but it is untreatable like people and it appears when he gets stressed or overly excited. Well that means we have spells every few months. He goes to the vet each time and gets a bunch of medication that he doesn't like to take at all. When it hits him is eyes goop closed and even when cleaned can take 30 minutes plus for him to get them opened he starts sneezing and wheezing it isn't good or fun for anyone. Apparently he isn't contagious according to the vet so I don't need to worry about the other cats. Does anyone else have a cat like this? How do you handle it? Any steps to prevent it?

Cats with feline herpes are pretty common as far as I know. Many people use L-lysine to manage flare-ups. I don't know about transmission.  Let's hope some more experienced members will pop in soon.

I have a chronic herpes cat. He gets daily Famcyclovir. He has drippy eyes daily, as his tear ducts are scarred shut. He sometimes gets sneezy. I don't notice that it is cyclical, he's just always like this. If I miss his medication, the eye drainage gets darker. He does ok, despite this. 

@Walkingrock  is Famcyclovir like Viralys?

I had a cat who never showed any signs of herpes until after dental extractions at age 11.  her symptoms were quite sudden and severe: eye goop/trouble opening her eyes.  A trip to the vet and some special eye drops got rid of 90% of the problem within 24 hours. a second set of eye drops about a week later got rid of symptoms completely.  (I'm not sure what the drops were - probably anti-viral) So in this case, it was stress-induced herpes flare.

My current cat was extrememly sneezy, eye goopy when I adopted her at 12 weeks.  She had upper respiratory symptoms, eye discharge, sneezes and other auto-immune symptoms.  I started mixing L-lysine in with her food and her symptoms slowly subsided over time.  Would she have outgrown the symptoms anyway?  Hard to tell.  She did have to have a dental cleaning a couple of weeks ago and I was worried that the trip to the dentist, the general anaesthetic etc would upset the apple cart and bring symptoms on, but luckily there was no flare.

I still give Pip L-lysine every day, a small dose of perhaps 100 mg a day as "maintenance" but now that she's over one year old and her symptoms are so mild, I'm not as consistent with dosing her.  

My understanding is that about 90% of cats carry the virus and it remains dormant in most.  Young cats or stressed cats may exhibit symptoms - as mine did.

I am lucky in that for both cats, its been quite manageable.  Good luck with yours.

I have a herpes kitty.  The key to keeping the flare ups at bay is good nutrition and supplementing to boost the immune system.  The first thing we did was put Hannah on a grain-free diet. The arginine in grains is shown to help the virus replicate.  If you take away the grains, you're reducing the chance of replication.  Secondly, we added L-Lysine to her diet twice a day.  Lysine helps the virus to not replicate.  We buy the powdered variety from VitaCost.  A 1/4t scoop equals about 500mg, so when she's fine, she gets half of a 1/4t scoop twice a day.  If she's having problems, then we up it to a full 1/4t twice a day.  Lysine is an amino acid that is flushed out of the body via urine, so keeping it in the body is crucial for it to help.  It takes about a month to see any kind of results.  We add it to wet food with a bit of water and mix everything together. 

Stress is the main trigger for flare ups, so try to keep your home as stress free as possible.  We run Feliway diffusers 24/7 to help her de-stress.  I know when it's time to change the diffuser because she'll start sneezing.  Also, try to keep to a routine and schedule.  Cats thrive on routine and this brings them comfort.  Erratic schedules and lots of traffic in your house can make her feel more stressed.  Try to have mealtimes at the same time and as much as possible, set your schedule to wake and go to bed at the same time.  Try to keep things calm in your home for her. 

Lastly, talk to your vet about vaccinations.  We can't give Hannah the FVRCP combo shot becuase she'll have a full-blown flare up because the "R" part is the herpes virus and her system just can't handle it.  Since herpes causes a compromised immune system, vaccinations should be kept to a minimum.  Also, steroids should be avoided as much as possible since they suppress the immune system.  If she happens to pick up some kind of virus while on steroids, her system may not be strong enough to ward it off, then you end up with a really sick kitty.

Thank you everyone. The first time he had a flare up was when we moved we stayed at my parents for a month while we were preparing the new house and he had his first flare up then. He doesn't get them as often as I try to keep the house as stress free as possible and monitor him checking regularly for symptoms. He doesn't do very well when I am gone he is very very attached to me and I am leaving for a week in a few days my boyfriend will be at home but he doesn't like my cats so he will do the basics food litter water that's about it. On top of that as soon as I get back I have 5-7 people coming from about 700 miles away from my home town and staying with me for 9 days. One of the people is my sister and he kind of knows her he has met her a handful of times but everyone else is new to him and I feel he will be very stressed with so many people coming he doesn't know. I know having them come will throw off his schedule and he does not like is schedule messed with at all and will get very sassy about it. I am afraid he will get sick again he already has goop eyes the last few days so fingers crossed he wont go into full herpes flare up causing him to be taken to the vet again. He hates the vet ever since he went in for surgery and it went wrong and caused him to stay an extra three days because they couldn't stop the bleeding they couldnt even get him out of the holding cage at the vet and had me go back and he jumped into my arms an hissed at the vet tech.

When you're gone, leave several dirty shirts for him. If possible, wear them for a day or two so they are full of your smell.  Then leave them where he sleeps so he'll be comforted by your smell even though you're not home. 

@stephanietx  the only problem with that is my female has a problem with peeing on my clothes when she gets mad/jealous/ how knows why so I cant have any of my clothes laying around or I am positive she will pee all over them especially since she gets mad very mad when I go out of town. Hopefully I can think of something my boyfriend is staying behind maybe I can convince him to give the cats extra attention since I wont be there to do it 

Well, then that definitely won't work!  Maybe invest in a couple of feliway diffusers to help her de-stress.  That might help some.

It is worth a try. Thank you very much