Feline Herpes

ryobious

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I work with a rescue in my area and am just looking for some advice regarding Feline Herpes. Here is the story. I got in a mama cat that was about 1 1/2 years old w/ her 4 four-month old kittens. Three of her kittens were adopted out before I even knew something was up with them. The last kitten, Stubbs, started getting crusty things around his chin and eyes. The vet had previously told us that the mom and babies had flea dirt and that is what that was. WRONG!! It got worse and worse and worse not matter what I did. Long story short, the mama was already pregnant with her next litter by the time she came in and had 5 kittens. Since she is the carrier all 9 kittens she has had has feline herpes. I explained what it was to everyone that adopted a kitten from me no one had any serious signs of it except one previous kitten, the mama and now one of her new kittens, the only remaining one. The vet told me to give Lysine to them 2x a day. Anyone have any other suggestions on how to fix this?? I know it is caused by stress. Which of course since they are in a foster home with other rescued pets there is going to be stress. I bought rescue remedy to try to help with stress levels. It did nothing. I bought Comfort Zone, Feliway this week and am waiting on it to ship to my house, maybe that will help. Any other suggestions. I tried a bedroom just to them but the mama HATES all other animals including her babies so clearly that didn't work out. She seems to be somewhat happy terrorizing my other cats. PLEASE HELP ME!!!
 

coaster

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Don't feel too bad. Herpes is so common that I think it's reasonable to expect any cat adopted from a shelter has it. Mostly it stays dormant and just flares up during stress. Also kittens because their immune systems aren't fully developed. Lysine suppresses it, but doesn't cure it. I don't know what to say other than follow the vet's advice about lysine.
 

momofmany

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Using Lysine daily can help control flare ups and may control them to some degree once they have it, but doesn't cure it. My Muddy has herpes in his right eye. He is as healthy as can be expected, but was orphaned at 10 days old so I know he didn't the best start in life. He is totally mellow with low stress. I give him Lysine everyday, and although it is manageable, he constantly shows signs of the disease - it simply gets worse without the Lysine. With Lysine he only has a slightly wet eye (instead of runny and goopy).

How much are you giving each day? My vet recommends for his size (about 9 pounds), 250mg a day as a preventative measure. I understand a higher does is needed if they are in a very active phase of the disease.
 

cjandbilly

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Is it just a herpes viral infection of the eye? CJ, Billy, Annie, and Belle all have that, and normally they keep it pretty clean, but occasionally I just wipe their eyes with a cottonball with warm water, and keep it clean, and all is well. CJ has it the worse, and gets it all the time, but Billy doesn't get it often. It's nothing serious. The cats should normally keep it clean themselves, and as they get older and have more cleanliness, they should care for their eyes more.
 

beckiboo

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Garfield has feline herpes. His symptoms include frequent sneezing. He will shoot boogers all over sometimes, and has sneezed over my plate, in my son's friend's face, on the windows...he gets diarrhea from L-Lysine, so I only give it if his symptoms seem worse than usual.

Some foods are high in Lysine, including salmon! Garfield loves salmon! Here's a link to a site of other foods high in Lysine, but it is a human site, so includes a lot of foods cats won't eat.
http://www.herpes.com/Nutrition.shtml
 

cloud_shade

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You might also ask your vet about interferon. It works really well for my sensitive senior kitty.
 
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ryobious

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It's not just a runny eye with these guys. They get it full blown. I am talking I had one 4 month old kitten that had his entire face almostly completely covered in scabs. It is mostly around the eyes and the chin and around the mouth area. It looks a little similar to flea dirt when it first starts out on the chin. I have had to put SoftPaws on them to keep them from scratching it raw and making it worse. The vet told me to give the mama cat 1000 mg. a day. She said alot of people underdose and that is why Lysine doesn't seem to make a difference. So I try to give 500 mg twice a day. The mama is very difficult about it so I just bought Viralys Lysine gel online this morning because it is a paste I can put on her paws instead of trying to crush pills and her refusing to eat it on her food or trying to get her to swallow pills which is impossible.

Do any of you have any ideas on how to relieve stress in a foster home?? I have cats coming and going all the time. I can't not take anymore in because this mama cat hates everyone. I mean I have a 2 story 1500 sq. ft. house. The downstairs has a gate with a cat hole because my dog isn't allowed upstairs. It is cats only. So cats don't mind the dog. Then upstairs I have different feeding/water areas, different bathroom areas, different beds everywhere. I just want everyone to get along and be healthy and happy. I can have her adopted out until I have this under control. Anyone have stress relieving ideas?? What about ideas to minumize the stress when they move to a new home so they don't have a flare up??
 

coaster

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Originally Posted by ryobious

trying to crush pills
Lysine is available in powdered form in gelatin capsules which you can easily slide open and sprinkle the powdered on food. The brand I have is Solaray, and it's sold in health food stores.
 

gailc

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Several yrs ago I saw a pretty colored cat in my sis-in-law's barn and took hime home.
He was really sick-pneumonia, upper resp and herpes. He slowly recovered from all of this but always did the sneezing/goopy eyes thing. I got some type of ointment that I put in his eyes-the vet had to "order" it as they didn't carry it.
Unfortunately that was 6 yrs ago and The Dude crossed to rainbow bridge a a couple of yrs ago so I don't have his vet records to see what they used.
 

zak&rocky

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[" The mama is very difficult about it so I just bought Viralys Lysine gel online this morning because it is a paste I can put on her paws instead of trying to crush pills and her refusing to eat it on her food or trying to get her to swallow pills which is impossible. "

My kitty Rocky (age 18 months)has had herpes since we got him. He has runny eyes, a corneal ulcer, a very runny nose, sneezy and occassionally coughs. The vet says there is nothing much we can do other than lysine except treat the symtoms. He took prednisone this winter when his coughing got bad. The prednisone may have contributed to weight gain, and his skin was flaky.. plus he acted kind of spazzy. We tried lysine awhile ago but he stopped wanting to eat his wet food until recently. The only brands he seems to be willing to eat for wet are friskies turky and cheese and sometimes friskies beef. (I know this isn't the best food for wet, but they won't eat anything else) Where did you get this Viralys Lysine gel? He is pretty good about taking liquid medicine.
 

momofmany

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Originally Posted by ryobious

Do any of you have any ideas on how to relieve stress in a foster home?? I have cats coming and going all the time. I can't not take anymore in because this mama cat hates everyone. I mean I have a 2 story 1500 sq. ft. house. The downstairs has a gate with a cat hole because my dog isn't allowed upstairs. It is cats only. So cats don't mind the dog. Then upstairs I have different feeding/water areas, different bathroom areas, different beds everywhere. I just want everyone to get along and be healthy and happy. I can have her adopted out until I have this under control. Anyone have stress relieving ideas?? What about ideas to minumize the stress when they move to a new home so they don't have a flare up??
You are in a tough situation. I have fostered enough to know how they react to cats coming and going. If there is any stress between the foster and the rest of the cats, or if the foster is sick, I will keep the foster isolated in a spare bedroom. While you lose some level of socialization with people, the times you spend with the cat will be of better quality as the cat will be less stressed. I use my spare bedroom and will go in and to watch TV and/or sleep with the cat overnight to give it more attention. Do you have the capability to do this?
 
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