New to the Forums and NEED Medical help with my feral cat!

datruez

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Hello All,
My name is Deb and I am new to the forums... Where to begin, I am at a loss...I saved a cat from a barn where I work last Feb. He was starved and extremly sick... He spent about 3 weeks in the vet just trying to survive. I named him Valentine. He is the sweetest thing ever! His problem is that he has had a TERRIBLE upper respitory infection since I got him. He has terrible nasal drainage and breathes with his mouth open and VERY loud. I found out that he has stomititis (spelling?) very bad so his mouth is full of ulcers. I have tried multiple treatments on him and nothing seems to work. I am worried about the cold. Has ANYONE had to deal with this? (the stomitits or this bad of a upper respitiory infection) I am pretty sure he does not have a food allergy because the cats at the barn seem to all have this URI.... IF ANYONE CAN HELP me I would so appriciate it....


Thanks Deb
 

momofmany

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What tests has the vet run on Valentine and what types of treatments have you put him on? I've had cats with both severe stomatitus and others with persistent URI's. They all need a regime of medications - antibiotics to ward off opportunistic infections from either one, and once off the antibiotics, anti-inflamatories (like prednisone) to decrease the swelling in their gums.

Does he have mouth ulcers or is it really stomatitus? The later is usually an inflamation of the gums and not really ulcers. Some FeLV cats have both severe mouth ulcers and chronic URI's. If your vet hasn't tested him for that, I suggest that you run that test to get a better feel for his health problems.

If is a sweet cat and not really feral, can you bring him into your house to get control of his health problems?
 

emmag

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My female cat is a carrier of cat flu (URI) and when she gets stressed out it does come out, at the moment she is ok, but whe I first got her, her eyes would be running all of the time and she would be constantly sneezing. I know that you can help them breath by keeping them in the bathroom and making the room very humid and steamy.
 

slitty_kittay

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Welcome to TCS!

Poor baby!
Yes, if he is still outside it could be much harder to get a grip on his problems. Do you have any idea of his age?
I hope you get to the bottom of this, he is lucky to have someone watching out for him!

Kim
 
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datruez

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Thank you for all your replies.
Yes, I have had him tested and he does have stomitits. I have had him on clindamycine (sp?) several times. I have also had his teeth cleaned twice since Feb and coated with something to help. (can't remember what it was that they coated it with. Valentine is an inside cat. Once I found him he was so weak and almost dead so he pretty much had no choice, but to trust me. The vet told me that he is about 7 or 8 yrs old. He spent those 3 weeks in the vet and then came home with me for about 4 days and was still so bad that I had to bring him back to the vet for another week.... I want nothing more than to help him and I guess I am torn, because part of me belives that I should be giving him more suppplements to help with his weakend immune system and the other part of me thinks that I should just listen to the vet and accept that this cold he has he is going to have forever...

Oh the other thing I am giving him is called MetaCam, which is more of a pain/anti-inflammatory. What is FeLV? I have had him tested for leukemea sp? and some other things and they came up negative...Yes, Valentine is in my house and never goes outside unless with me for a couple minutes here and there. I also own 2 other cats that I rescued from the barn and bottle fed. I am a little concerned about them getting sick, but my vet said that they were ok. I also have 2 dogs and one of them is a CHIHUAHUA and she adores him so much! they sleep together and are always together. Ruby (the dog) licks his snotty nose and cleans him all the time...Can she get sick?

If you could all meet him you would understand why I want to do anything I can to help him.....
 

hissy

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FeLV is feline leukemia so you can rest there. I would put him on GSE (grapefruit seed extract) if he were mine. Several drops in his canned food, and drops in his water to help destroy the bad bacteria and leave good bacteria behind. URI are quite contagious, and if he is dripping like a faucet and your other cats bump noses, they could also get sick. Feral cats are usually at a disadvantage because they sometimes don't get mom's milk if something happens to her and their immune system is low-
 
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