Pemphigus - Anyone have experience???

Greetings -

I'm fairly new to this forum, and as stated in my newbie post, http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52969 I had been looking for a cat with 'low adoption fee' since we had just moved. I found what seemed to be the perfect cat - a purebred siamese that the owner was giving up due to extensive travel for work. She didn't cost me anything - I figured I must be really lucky.

As I also said in my newbie post, I would never deny the veterinary care of an animal if I thought they needed it. Well, as also mentioned, Telka had a bit of a crusty ear that didn't look like the classic ear mites. She also had a small dry spot on her nose. Not a big deal, really, but I still was going to take her into the vets for a checkup anyways. During the time that I was waiting for the checkup, I noticed she licked her paws - a lot. She was obsessive about 'cleaning' them. I decided to find out what was so special about those paws, and I discovered this crusty, icky stuff surrounding the skin where the claws retracts into. Each of her digits that were affected (not all of them are) are also inflammed. Her paw pads are very dry, cracked/scaly.

The next day we got into the vets office. As it turns out, the vet said it looked like something that she'd only seen on dogs. She gave me this stuff to soak her feet in, some antibiotics, cleaned her ear, this fatty acid liquid stuff for her food to help her skin, and we also got her some poultry toothpaste. This came to a whopping $130. Well...she was worth it, and I certainly didn't feel bad, at the time, about spending that amount on her.

I came home later and decided to look up this ailment that affected dogs. I couldn't remember exactly what she said, but I found one that seems to be the case and does sound like what the vet had said. It's called Pemphigus. And yes, it did affect a variety of dog breeds, but also - you guessed it - siamese cats. It appears in young mid adulthood (she's 3). It's an autoimmune response to her skin (meaning, her immune system has decided that the skin is no longer its friend, and has begun attacking it like it's a disease). Once this has started, it never goes away - treatment is for the rest of the cat's life. It must have a biopsy done to determine if it is pemphigus or not, and then must be put on something that suppresses the immune system. So it's best to keep the cat indoors at all times (she already is), and has to have regular blood tests the first doses until a minimal dose level can be established.

Now, with all that said, she fits into every category, even her age, and the pictures showing pemphigus look exactly like her claws. So why was I given expensive foot bath stuff and antibiotics? There wasn't even a biopsy done. I can only think that the vet must have dismissed her initial thought that it was pemphigus because she'd never seen it in a cat. The vet also said that if this treatment didn't work, the next treatment would be x-rays (on their sheet it says min. of $175.) What happened to thinking it was pemphigus?? Could she really have just dismissed it altogether without even taking a biopsy??

*le sigh* If it is pemphigus, which I'm fairly sure it is now, looking through all the information, I don't know how much it'll cost for her treatments that she'll have to be on for the rest of her life. I sometimes wonder if her owner new about this already, and this was the real reason the cat was dropped off. I don't think so - as the owner did say I could return her if it didn't work out, and she loved the cat dearly...but I may end up doing so if I find out the treatments are going to be more than I can afford in the long-term. Which will be really -really- devastating, as I lost my last cat tragically and now I've grown to love and adore this one. She's beautiful, incredibly loving, has these silly things about her like wagging her tail like a dog all the time...*sighs*

So I want to know if anyone knows about how much treatments are going to cost? I'm going to speak with the vet in the next couple of days...I'm going to try her treatments and see if anything comes of it first though.

This is news to me and I have been involved with Siamese cats for most of my life ... can you send me the link to the information you found on this condition as it relates to Siamese? As a breeder of Old-Style Siamese cats, of course I am highly interested in knowing more about this!

There are a few members here that have had some success with auto-immune dysfunction in their cats by adding a dietary supplement called The Missing Link. I am certain they will be coming along later and would be happy to expand on their successes as well as their experiences with it, but I have no personal knowledge of this product other than what I have read about it - which is all good.

Best of luck with your girl ... I hope you can find something that works for both of you.

http://vetmedicine.about.com/gi/dyna...%2Fdpemph.html

Under Pemphigus - Cysts on feet
The 4th paragraph down states "Dobermans, schipperkes, akitas, chows, bearded collies, rottweilers
and Siamese cats are usually included in lists of breeds most likely to be
affected by this condition. "

Yes, I certainly would like to hear from those other people too

Thank you. I am sure that the other Siamese breeders I know will be interested in this too. Again, best of luck with your baby ... I just hate it that you are having to go through this.

I am certain someone more knowledgable will be along soon.

If the stuff the vet gave you for her feet is useless and expensive, maybe you could return it. You should also show this vet the article where it says siamese cats are affected with this thing. Vets are not gods, and many times they aren't informed on the problems with particular breeds. My vet didn't even know persians can have PKD. As I said before, that's the danger of having purebreds-there is always some crappy disease some particular breed is succeptable to.

Yeah...well the previous owner said she was purebred, so I think it's now also my responsibility to try to find the breeder and notify them of this genetic disease that has occurred. Hopefully the previous owner will remember where she got her from. But I'm not calling until the diagnosis is absolute. No sense worrying the breeder until then.

This is very responsible of you - I am glad you are going to try and find the breeder. I just hope that she will in turn, also be as responsible and do the right thing here, which is to stop breeding these cats.

Bumping up...hoping people who've used "the missing link" could shed some light

I 've used and currently use Missing Link (feline, canine and avian), but never for an autoimmune issue.
Missing Link also has prescription formulas, which is what my youngest two are on now.

I'm so sorry you're going through this and I'm also very sorry she's going through this.

hello. i had a most beloved male burmese that had pemphigus. he passed away last year at age 14. but, i wanted to share our experiences with you. he was diagnosed (after much testing) with pemphigus when he was around 8 months old. same scaly inside ears that you described, etc. he was placed on a very small oral dose of prednisone, which was gradually over some years reduced to 1/2 tablet every other day. amazingly, when he had an eye infection which had to be treated with aggressive antibiotics, he had to be taken off the pred. after he was off it for about a month --- he had absolutely no recurrence of the pemphigus! the bottom line is this, the pred caused him apparently no health problems, and after some years of treating him, the pemphigus went into remission, or disappeared entirely. i don't what the case will be with your kitty, of course, but i just wanted to share my experience, and hopefully, to give you some hope.

After reading your original post I was curious because your discription of the paws sounded much like what I found on my kittens who were diagnosed as having ringworm. Fortunately for my group it was ringworm.

Anyway I found this site and thought it might be of interest. It describes all sorts of skin ailments in cats and dogs and has pictures of the ailment

Pemphigus

I wish this site would email me when I new post has been posted...guess I don't have preferences right or this forum doesn't support it.

ANYWAYS...yeah, that's the link I saw to the pemphigus when I was researching it before - her nose doesn't look like that at all...it was just a small dried spot. It may or may not relate to the paws. The paws look EXACTLY like that though. And that crusty stuff around them is the same stuff inside her ear.

I've now finished the meds the vet gave. The food bath did *nothing* She absolutely will NOT eat anything that has the trans fatty acid stuff on it. The antibiotic did *nothing* The cleaning of the ear just made it come back, probably a little worse this time. So yeah...wonderful.

After almost giving up that I wouldn't hear from the previous owner, she finally emailed me (called and emailed her). It turns out she only had Telka for 3 months, and so she's trying to get the info from the previous owner before that (this one sounds like she's had her for awhile, at least, and took really good care of her). So, now I'm waiting to get in touch with her.

Meanwhile, now that I KNOW that Telka's had her vaccinations and got that at least started to be straightened out, I'm calling the vet tomorrow. And she's getting an earful. Ok, I'll be nice...but honestly, if she thought it was pemphigus to begin with why prescribe a bunch of stuff that won't work?

Thanks for the info on the burmese that had pemphigus...I wanted to ask, about how much was his meds then per month?

Do you perhaps have pictures of your kitties paws at that time? I hate to think ringworm...there are some bad implications there (long story short, I have show chinchillas, and chins are susceptible to ringworm, so it could easily spread to them through my contact, even though they are in very separated rooms). I guess it'd be better than pemphigus though :\\

Originally Posted by SaveTheKitties

After reading your original post I was curious because your discription of the paws sounded much like what I found on my kittens who were diagnosed as having ringworm. Fortunately for my group it was ringworm.

Anyway I found this site and thought it might be of interest. It describes all sorts of skin ailments in cats and dogs and has pictures of the ailment

Pemphigus

Click to expand...

hi. the cost of the prednisone was not very much (can't remember the exact amount) but i actually got it at a regular pharmacy, not from the vet (vet called in prescriptions for me). they were very small tablets, and i didn't have any trouble giving them to my boy. best of luck to you.

It's funny, I was wanting to research pemphigus a little more and came upon this old thread that I started when I first got Telka.

It has a happy ending!

Well, nearly...

After spending another $400 to get Telka properly diagnosed, I was contacted by her original owner and told that Telka had been diagnosed with Pemphigus years ago, and she was supposed to be on medication (none of this was ever mentioned by the person that had her for less than 3 mo., and that person was never heard from again). We got her the medication, but it didn't seem to help much, so we stopped getting it.

That was in 2005. By 2006, her ear started looking better and her nose stopped crusting. By 2007, her ear was clear, and by 2008, her paws were totally cleared up. No one suspected anything was wrong with her anymore. What did we do? I don't know - we gave her a loving, stable home, high quality dry and wet cat food, and that was it, as far as I know. She has been the best kitty we've ever had and can't imagine why anyone would ever give her up. She cuddles under the blankets at night and insists on being in your lap as much as possible.

About 8 months ago we introduced a puppy to our lives. Telka hates other cats, and certainly isn't fond of dogs. She hid from the puppy the first couple of days, but then batted the puppy and apparently felt comfortable about still being queen of the household. Now she doesn't seem to mind the dog unless the pup gets too close, and then she's more than willing to dish out a bat to the ears.

I had my reservations about getting the puppy due to Telka's prior problems with pemphigus and not knowing what caused her to get better, but I did know she previously lived with dogs.

Now it's 8 months later and she's starting to show signs of pemphigus again. I would've thought if the puppy was going to cause problems, it would've happened before now.

But then I remembered that we'd been using a newspaper-based kitty litter and my husband recently went to a scented clay scoopable litter because it was easier. I've always liked the newspaper stuff, but I don't change the litter so... But now I'm wondering if it was the litter. We're switching back to the newspaper stuff in any case.

But I do wonder about pemphigus itself. I realize it's an auto-immune disease, and she did have a biopsy done that, to my knowledge, demonstrated conclusively that she does have it. But why the disappearance and apparent reappearance? It makes me wonder what kind of research has been done on this disease.

My Burmese cat has been living with PF for about five years now. I have him on a regimen of Cyclosporine and Triamcinolone. He would still have random flare ups, but then I got him a companion cat and he was much less stressed and had almost no recurrence. Now, we just recently got a third kitten who is sort of bugging my two more mature cats, and Pierre is having a small flare. This disease is highly connected to stress. Small changes can make your cat stressed out EVEN if he doesn't seem to be. Stress gets high enough- boom, flare. 

Since this thread was brought up again (wow, started in '05!), I thought I'd give and update on Telka (since I believe this is the only thread I've ever started on here, and I don't visit otherwise).  She's 14 years old now!  After re-reading my prior post, I thought I'd mention that her small flare up went away a month or so after we went back to the newspaper litter.  I personally think it was probably the litter, but I haven't tried the clay stuff again "just to see", for obvious reasons.  We now have two dogs and she's more than willing to put them in their places.  She's not on any meds and is an otherwise healthy cat.  People are pretty surprised when I tell them her age, as she's just the most gorgeous Siamese ever    

Telka, 14 years old (I eventually got her registration papers, which confirmed her age to be 6 years old at the time, rather than the "3 years" that I was originally told).

I love your story! I have a 15 year old Balinese ( long haired siamese) that I adopted when he was 9... Still the most regal looking creature ever!

You have given me hope. I just got a flame point siamese and have noticed little blisters in his ears as well as crusty areas around the blisters. His lymph nodes are also swollen. We've been to the vet twice, when I asked her about the nodes under his chin, she just said, " there's salivary glands and lymph tissue there" and not to worry. Now I can palpate his nodes on both sides under his armpits. In researching, I came across your post.

I am praying for as good a outcome as you had. I love my siamese kitties, sweetest, most personable puddy cats ever.