Persistant problem with ear mites and flu

Hello, I am Tom and new here. Early in August we were camping and a real sick stray cat picked me out of all the campers for some reason. I felt bad for him so I found something for him to eat and he stayed with us the whole weekend. Being the big softy I am I couldn't just leave him to die so I brought him home and have been taking care of him since. He had a real bad case of feline flu and real bad ear mites and bad worms/parasites. He was also really thin and dehidrated. I took him to our vet [we have 4 other house cats and a big dog] They treated him for the worms and he is fine now with that, he gained over 2 lbs in a week and a half. I had to give him clavamox for secondary infection, his eyes were really bad, both had the inner lid almost closed and yellow junk comming out of them both and he also had alot of yellow drainage from his nose. He came around real good on the clavamox but never quite got rid of all the congestion so the next thing the vet did was give me liquid tetracycline [sp] and some pills to knock it out but he is impossible to get pills into, it took 2 vets and me just to get the worm pill in him, anyway I gave him the tetracycline but not the pills he is doing great know and he is a very nice cat but his breathing was getting worse again so I took him back in and they gave me clavamox again for him and he has been treated 2 times for ear mites with revolution and I have been also using the Hartz ear mite treatment. Any way he gets almost back to good shape for a little while and then he starts to go down hill again. He had a funny smell to him and I finally figured out it was comming from his ears and there was alot of stuff like coffee grounds in them, The wife is a RN so she keeps cleaning his ears out the best she can. He still has problems breathing, bad cough, discharge from one eye, and sneezes alot of yellow junk out. Does it nomally take along time to get totaly rid of all this stuff? He eats and drinks great and his bad diarea is all gone. Vet thinks he is about 3 years old. I have no idea how long he was sick before he found me but I think a long time, I have been working with him since the first weekend back in August. Any tips or ideas? I am real sorry for the real long post my first time here. Tom

Hi Tom:

2 years ago we got our Sir Toby from a shelter. He had chronical respiratory problems, just like us heaving a bad head cold. Especially in the mornings he blew out big greenish gobs of snot, he had ear mites, too and he was kind of "quiet".
The black stuff in the ears are the ear mites or their residue.
The vet gave us antibiotics (a paste) to smoke out the respiratory problems and we were told to let him have this for three weeks and not to let up, even if he started to get better. Cutting the antibiotic too soon would give the sickness an oppourtunity to regroup and to strike back. Luckily he loved the paste and licked it off my finger without any problem at all.
Against the ear mites we used a stuff called "Surolan", a liquid to be put into the ears. It's supposed to work against other ear infections, too. Stateside the stuff might be having an altogether different name.
The only advice I could give: Keep up a close co-operation with your vet and have patience, it takes a certain time to smoke out the sickness.

I'm sure that our forum experts like Hissy and others could give you much more info yet - you found the right forum for sure!

Take care and good luck!

C U later

Joe

Hi Tom,

Go to the vets for special prescribed medicine for ear mites. Don't use any home remedies. It is the only way to get rid of them.

One thing I would say is I wouldn't use the Hartz, I could be wrong but I have read several bad things about there products, I'm sure some one will be along to give you other opions, good luck

Thanks for the input, The vet has treated him with revolution 1 time and when it didn't clear up she gave me another revolution treatment I gave him but I don't think it is working, so I guess I will have to ask if there is something else to try. It gets kind of expensive to run him to the vet all the time but if that is what it takes to get him better then I will be happy. He is starting to pull away from me because I have to give him meds all the time so he thinks that when ever I pick him up now he thinks I am going to do something he don't like. One of our other young cats don't like me anymore because I am always the one to have to take him to the vet which hurts me because I raised him with a bottle when he was tiny because the mom cat stopped feeding him. Tom

An interesting home remedy for ear mites (parasites usual in stray cats ears, looks as old coffe rests yes) - is oil. Baby oil best, but probably oliv-oil will do too.

Not too much, but so the ear will be oily. The parasites suffocates in it, and it is 100% harmless for the cat.

Keep up the good work!

Good luck!

At my vet clinic, we use Revolution too, but we also recommend you clean the ears out twice a day to remove the dead mites and debris they leave behind, as well as follow up with ear drops called Tresaderm twice a day. (Please stay away from Hartz, it is really bad for them, IMO) Ear mites are hard to get rid of, but if you follow those guidelines, you should be fine. It usually take 7-10 days to get rid of them. I don't think you mentioned if you got the kitty Feline Leukemia/FIV tested or not? Being an outside cat and loaded with all those other parasites and flu, I would STRONGLY recommend you do that, before sticking any more money into him. I don't mean he's not worth the money, but you could be dealing with a serious illness, and wasting your money on medications that cannot cure him. The "funny smell" you mentioned could be (worst case scenarios) some kind of organ failure, such as liver or kidney, in which the smell would come from the mouth, or he may need his teeth cleaned, if he's been outside eating mice and whatnot. I would recommend you get at least the Leukemia/FIV test and if that's negative, get at least a mini blood panel to check the organs. Good luck, keep us posted!!
P.S. I forgot two things after reading this again...you said his breathing is bad, have him checked for heartworm (a blood test) and also, try "Pill Pockets" from Butler for his pills. They are flavored little meaty things you can get from some vets offices, they can order them for you, and they are made to hide the pill in a yummy smelling casing. Most cats will eat them. Or, try crushing the pills and mixing them tuna. It smells strongly, and most cats will eat it up. And then he won't think you are trying to get him all the time!! If this works, you can get Clavamox in pill form.

I have chronic 'sick' cats.
I have no advice for you for shaking his issues, but I can say that I ALWAYS follow any bad things I need to do (meds, washing, etc) with a treat.
Cats begin to associate the med time with treats, makes it easier, and keeps them from thinking of you as the bad guy.

I had an 'ear mite' problem with my kitties that turned out to be yeast and a bacterial infection in their ears. Have your vet examine the junk in his ear under a microscope just to see. and good luck!

I had a kitty similar to this last year, we had found her out in the middle of the woods. She was a mess. I cleaned her ears with the stuff the vet gave me- I would never use over the counter products on my cats, and sadly Hartz is at the top of my list of what not to use, although this year they are making a true concentrated effort to pull their products off the shelves and change their formula and labeling to safer standards.

But anyway, after several bouts with antibiotics which never seemed to work, I started putting about 4 drops of grapefruit seed extract in her canned food. Her runny nose and draining eyes cleared up in several days, and I still add GSE to the water and the canned food here for all the cats-

The leukemia test was the first thing the vet did the first time I took him in. She said if he was positive chances are he would not live but it was negetive so we have kept working with him. I stopped in the vet today and said I didn't think the stuff was working yet but she said what you just said about cleaning out the junk and they showed me some stuff to put in his ears, I didn't buy any yet but I think I will. She also said that if he is still having problems in a few days they will have to check him over in more detail. I was hoping to get by without spending alot of money on him but it looks like its not going to turn out that way. I don't know if they did any other blood tests, the vet don't tell me much unless I ask, makes me mad sometimes. We have been cleaning his ears with Q tips, How far in his ears can we go before the possiblity of causing damage to his hearing or whatever? Tom

Originally Posted by Tom W

The leukemia test was the first thing the vet did the first time I took him in. She said if he was positive chances are he would not live but it was negetive so we have kept working with him. I stopped in the vet today and said I didn't think the stuff was working yet but she said what you just said about cleaning out the junk and they showed me some stuff to put in his ears, I didn't buy any yet but I think I will. She also said that if he is still having problems in a few days they will have to check him over in more detail. I was hoping to get by without spending alot of money on him but it looks like its not going to turn out that way. I don't know if they did any other blood tests, the vet don't tell me much unless I ask, makes me mad sometimes. We have been cleaning his ears with Q tips, How far in his ears can we go before the possiblity of causing damage to his hearing or whatever? Tom

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Only go as far as you can see!

Yes, on cats you can't go in very far. But if you're cleaning just as far as you can see in there, AND using the medicine, eventually the dead stuff will shake out when the cat shakes his head. But it's a good idea to help it along to get the majority of "gunk" out of the ears to allow the medicine to get down there. The best way is to put ear cleaner (mineral oil works well for mites, it breaks up that kind of debris very well, or your vet may carry a product called Cerumene which is basically the same consistancy) on the Q-tip, then swab the ear out. I recommend clipping his rear nails too, so he doesn't damage the ears when he scratches them. I would buy the ear drops and use Revolution, it works very well together. P.S. It takes a few months for Feline Leukemia to show up in the system. If he contracted it right before he found you, you should have him retested in about 6 months to double check that he is truly negative.

Originally Posted by menagerie mama

Yes, on cats you can't go in very far. But if you're cleaning just as far as you can see in there, AND using the medicine, eventually the dead stuff will shake out when the cat shakes his head. But it's a good idea to help it along to get the majority of "gunk" out of the ears to allow the medicine to get down there. The best way is to put ear cleaner (mineral oil works well for mites, it breaks up that kind of debris very well, or your vet may carry a product called Cerumene which is basically the same consistancy) on the Q-tip, then swab the ear out. I recommend clipping his rear nails too, so he doesn't damage the ears when he scratches them. I would buy the ear drops and use Revolution, it works very well together. P.S. It takes a few months for Feline Leukemia to show up in the system. If he contracted it right before he found you, you should have him retested in about 6 months to double check that he is truly negative.

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Is mineral oil the same stuff as baby oil? Tom

No.

Do I have to get this mineral oil from a vet or is it at wal-mart?

You can get it at Wal-Mart, or a local drug store.

We use revolution on all our cats and sweet olive oil in the ears...can get the olive oil at any drug store, grocery store. Works great!

Hi, just a little update on the sick kitty, He is almost done with his second round of clavamox but he still has a real deep cough, he lays there and moves his head from side to side on every cough like he can't breath or something, the poor guy. I guess I have to talk to the vet again. I don't think he is much better than before this last round of clavamox. His ears seem to be alot better at least.