Chronic URI -- sneezing and goopy eyes

[artful badger]

I have a foster cat Laurel. She has been really stuffed for the several months we have had her. She is active and playful and does well but they won't allow her to be put up for adoption.

She is under the care of a vet at the shelter as needed which isn't optimal. It's not like my vet where I have any choice in what to do for her or can get additional testing done when and if I want it. I have been pushing to be able to take her to a normal vet but from what I hear there's some ego issues with this vet and it might be take some time before they'll agree to it.

I don't want to get on the wrong side of this vet because I plan to continue fostering here.

We've treated with antibiotics, Zithromax, L-lysine suppliments already. Some things eased her symptoms but never for good. She now has goopy eyes about every other day and sneezes a ton of snot out about once a day. Last week the vet decided to flush her sinuses and sent out a fungal culture of the snot (FINALLY!) and I'm waiting for results.

Does anyone have experience with a chronic URI-type of cat? I'd love some ideas to bring up and see if we can do anything for Laurel. She's a great cat and she deserves better than this. If you have no advice please think healthy dry-sinus/nasal thoughts for Laurel. We appreciate it.

Thanks,

 

[hissy]

When the antibiotics fail, I have always had good results with GSE (grapefruit seed extract) I buy the liquid- it is quite bitter and thick, and add it to the water bowl (about 4 drops) and 2 drops to the canned food. I haven't had URI in the rescues in over 3 years now.

 

[grneyedmustang]

My cat has a similar problem....when I adopted her from the shelter she had a really bad URI....I took her to the vet, and they gave her zithromax and some antibiotics. The goopy eyes, runny nose, and constant sneezing went away, but she still sneezes periodically. Is it possible for cats to have "allergies"?

 

[grneyedmustang]

My cat has a similar problem....when I adopted her from the shelter she had a really bad URI....I took her to the vet, and they gave her zithromax and some antibiotics. The goopy eyes, runny nose, and constant sneezing went away, but she still sneezes periodically. Is it possible for cats to have "allergies"?

 

[artful badger]

Originally Posted by grneyedmustang

Is it possible for cats to have "allergies"?

In my experience yes. I have another cat (not the one I originally asked about) that goes through a period in the spring where she gets the sneezing with snot blasts fits. The rest of the year she's fine so I think she has seasonal allergies.

Other cats can have a reocurrance of the original URI later if they get stressed or weakened immune system for some reason. I have one cat that had a URI when she was a kitten and once in a great while she'll get a dribbly eye for a few weeks.

----------
Hissy - thanks for the advice. I'll give it a try. I'm getting the run around from the shelter AGAIN!

I'm thinking of defecting and fostering for another local group instead after Laurel is gone from my foster room (if she ever is!). This is really frustrating.

~Heather

 

[momofmany]

My Bogart had permanent sinus scaring from a URI at 8 weeks old and had chronic URI's for his entire 13 years of life. Long term, we had to distinquish between things that triggered problems in him seasonally, and only medicate when his symptoms went beyond that. We switched medicines on a regular basis. Some to address specifically the URI, and other times using broad spectrum antiobiotics. When things got really bad, he was given additional nutrient shots to stimulate his appetite, which was often poor because he was so stuffed up. We really had to be careful about over medicating him or he would have built up a tolerance to all medicines.

Since this is a short term foster situation, I think the key is breaking the cycle. Keeping them on the same meds will cause them to build up a tolerance to them and make them less effective. Perhaps try to get the vet to switch meds to something more broad spectrum?

 

[bengy221]

this sounds just like my little Kingston when I first adopted him. He spent the entire first year and a half of his life with these runny black crusty eyes, runny nose, and sneezing. Every time we would try antibiotics, the sneezing would go but the eye and nose problems persisted. the sneezing would come back after a few weeks and the whole thing would start over again. His poor eyes... sometimes they would get so bad that they would get stuck shut

They swore he had feline herpes, and we avoided steroids at all costs to not make things worse. We tried interferon, L-lysine, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory eye drops (which sting like heck for the poor cat), and nothing helped. We then tried some specialists that promptly told us "this is not herpes". He of course had already been testing for all the auto immune problems and was negative so we tried several different biopsies from his nose, eyes, etc that all came back unconclusive. Finally as the only option left, we tried steroids and poof he's fine. We basically started him out on prednisone and watched him to make sure he didn't have any bad reactions and then when we determined it wasnt making things worse, we did a full course of it. Now of course he is fine unless he gets highly stressed and then the squinting and crusties come back. But prednisone wipes it out right away.

may not help at all and could even make things worse - but it might be worth asking the vet about

 

[oscar]

We were told to keep the air humidified for our kitty who came from the shelter with and URI. We also cleaned all surfaces he sneezed on with hydrogen peroxide. He got much worse (sneezing blood) before he got better and has some sinus damage, but only the occasional light sneeze for the past two years. We keep our humidity 40-45% for him and us.

Let us know what the cultures show. If you take him to another vet, how will the "foster vet" know? I wouldn't tell him!

 

[artful badger]

I finally talked with the shelter vet and got some answers. Laurel has chronic Rhinitis. In addition her culture initially showed pseudonimus (sp) and the subsequent culturing was to see what antibiotics might work against it. Apparently this kind of thing is pretty resistant.

The good news is that she is willing to let Laurel be put up for adoption!

She'll be labelled as a special health needs kitty and it might take her longer to find her people but at least she has an option!

We're going to try one more round of antibiotics first. I'm also welcome to take her to my vet if I want to. Since I have some answers, i.e. options, I'm not so eager to do that but we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for your help and for holding my hands so I didn't wallop the foster coordinator who was being extremely unhelpful.

~Heather