I'm new here, but I've been trying desperately to find others that know about this disease. My cat, Mickey, was infected with Cytaux in late June of this year. Every search on the internet was heart breaking and left me with no hope. However, Mickey is a miracle. For those of you unfamiliar with this disease, I want to tell you that it's very serious and deadly just like all the sites say it is. Your quick response to get to your vet may be the very thing that can save his/her life.
Mickey was very tired and laying around for at least 24 hours, but his refusal to eat is what got my attention. We rushed in to the vet as soon as this happened. He stayed at the vet for about a week. They did blood work immediately and suspected Cytaux. I guess knowing the seriousness of this disease, they started him on the injections for Cytaux even before having the lab verify it.
That first week, we all expected him to die. He did not eat anything for one week and was a walking bag of bones. He would also have what we thought were reactions to the medicine. There's only one known medicine for this disease, so knowing he could be allergic to it, I was a nervous wreck. For Cytaux, you get the medicine every 2 weeks until you've had all four injections. His ears began looking strange and over time started dying, then his tail started getting stiff and was also dying. We also had hair loss on both front legs and the toes of one foot. The bald areas on the leg were about the size of a penny. The vet was staying in contact with the specialist and they all decided that giving him the last injection may not be a good idea since we were not sure what was making all the weird stuff happen, so we stopped the injections after the 3rd one.
Mickey's ears did stop dying and the hardened areas fell off, but we were afraid of what might happen with the tail, so we waited as long as possible and amputated about 2 weeks ago. Now, the stub that's left has also gotten hard and we're hoping it will fall off itself. His mood is great and he continues to rough-up his sister. No one knows what to expect next with the tail. They say there is no other cat that has had side effects that they can look back at. Most cats with Cytaux, die within a few days of getting it according to the internet sites. Our vet has said that most of the cats that make it past the first few days usually dies before the second injection.
I tell everyone that is a cat lover about Mickey since Cytaux is a growing disease in the South-Eastern states. The worst part of it is that one site said it didn't matter if they have a tick collar or not because all the tick has to do is bite the cat and tick collars don't work that fast to kill the tick. My advice, if any, would be to treat your yards. What else can we do? It's been a long hard road and I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I've spent at least $1200 on this cat and I don't regret it for a minute, but I can tell you from our experience that Cytaux can be expensive, but the biggest problem for me has been the emotional issues. We now take one day at a time and thank God for every one of them.
Mickey was very tired and laying around for at least 24 hours, but his refusal to eat is what got my attention. We rushed in to the vet as soon as this happened. He stayed at the vet for about a week. They did blood work immediately and suspected Cytaux. I guess knowing the seriousness of this disease, they started him on the injections for Cytaux even before having the lab verify it.
That first week, we all expected him to die. He did not eat anything for one week and was a walking bag of bones. He would also have what we thought were reactions to the medicine. There's only one known medicine for this disease, so knowing he could be allergic to it, I was a nervous wreck. For Cytaux, you get the medicine every 2 weeks until you've had all four injections. His ears began looking strange and over time started dying, then his tail started getting stiff and was also dying. We also had hair loss on both front legs and the toes of one foot. The bald areas on the leg were about the size of a penny. The vet was staying in contact with the specialist and they all decided that giving him the last injection may not be a good idea since we were not sure what was making all the weird stuff happen, so we stopped the injections after the 3rd one.
Mickey's ears did stop dying and the hardened areas fell off, but we were afraid of what might happen with the tail, so we waited as long as possible and amputated about 2 weeks ago. Now, the stub that's left has also gotten hard and we're hoping it will fall off itself. His mood is great and he continues to rough-up his sister. No one knows what to expect next with the tail. They say there is no other cat that has had side effects that they can look back at. Most cats with Cytaux, die within a few days of getting it according to the internet sites. Our vet has said that most of the cats that make it past the first few days usually dies before the second injection.
I tell everyone that is a cat lover about Mickey since Cytaux is a growing disease in the South-Eastern states. The worst part of it is that one site said it didn't matter if they have a tick collar or not because all the tick has to do is bite the cat and tick collars don't work that fast to kill the tick. My advice, if any, would be to treat your yards. What else can we do? It's been a long hard road and I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I've spent at least $1200 on this cat and I don't regret it for a minute, but I can tell you from our experience that Cytaux can be expensive, but the biggest problem for me has been the emotional issues. We now take one day at a time and thank God for every one of them.
