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- Feb 17, 2017
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Please please help me. I would appreciate any help or information anyone can give. I don't want to resort to euthanasia but I'm afraid its heading that direction from astronomical costs.
I have a 12 year old diabetic domestic short hair female. Her diabetes isn't extremely tightly controlled but the vet is satisfied with her numbers. About 3 weeks ago the area above her eye started getting pinkish, slightly swollen and then hair started falling out. As this condition has gone on she's lost a lot of hair above her eye and is starting to lose some around her chest. She's extremely itchy. Most recently the backs of her ears have started to develop small scaly looking patches. She has a cone to prevent scratching but its leading to problems with hygiene because she can't clean herself properly.
I have taken her to the vet 3 times in the past 3 weeks and they have been testing her for everything under the sun.
Ringworm - still waiting (have another week)
Mites/Ticks/Worms/Parasites etc - negative
Yeast infection - negative
Other infection - negative
Underlying conditions - negative (aside from the established diabetes)
Not contagious - 2 dogs and another cat in the house and all are fine. Humans are fine as well.
She's had an in-house and out-house cytology. She's had eye drops, skin ointment, pills, a shot that lasted 2 weeks and the vet also put her on Revolution (anti-parasite.) The medications were broad spectrum for bacterial, fungal and viral. Nothing is working. She sleeps a lot and she seems miserable. Whatever is happening is throwing off her glucose numbers too. The vet called today and recommended that I take her to a dermatologist specialist for allergy testing. I've already spent $800 this month at the vets and the dermatologist would be another $500-$1200 for the initial visit and testing. The $1200 range is if the tests come back positive and they start treatment. Between the continual cost for her diabetes treatment and then this I just don't know what to do. I'm extremely stressed out and I feel horrible for considering euthanasia but I can't keep shelling out this kind of money in such a short period. If it were spaced out it would be more manageable but this is really difficult. I'm already spending a lot of money paying back school loans. My vet also said the costs could keep going up at the dermatologist because if its not an allergy and they can't determine what it is they'll want to do ultrasounds and more blood tests, so on and so forth and I could be looking at another thousand just in diagnostics. Its killing me because she's not happy right now but I feel like if this were gone she would be a happy cat.
The photo below shows the current condition of her eye. Its greasy from the ointment and a bit crusty because yellow discharge comes from the eye. I clean it daily but I wanted to show what it looks like before I can clean it. She squints that eye a lot too. Thus far it hasn't spread beyond that point of her head or to her other eye.
I have a 12 year old diabetic domestic short hair female. Her diabetes isn't extremely tightly controlled but the vet is satisfied with her numbers. About 3 weeks ago the area above her eye started getting pinkish, slightly swollen and then hair started falling out. As this condition has gone on she's lost a lot of hair above her eye and is starting to lose some around her chest. She's extremely itchy. Most recently the backs of her ears have started to develop small scaly looking patches. She has a cone to prevent scratching but its leading to problems with hygiene because she can't clean herself properly.
I have taken her to the vet 3 times in the past 3 weeks and they have been testing her for everything under the sun.
Ringworm - still waiting (have another week)
Mites/Ticks/Worms/Parasites etc - negative
Yeast infection - negative
Other infection - negative
Underlying conditions - negative (aside from the established diabetes)
Not contagious - 2 dogs and another cat in the house and all are fine. Humans are fine as well.
She's had an in-house and out-house cytology. She's had eye drops, skin ointment, pills, a shot that lasted 2 weeks and the vet also put her on Revolution (anti-parasite.) The medications were broad spectrum for bacterial, fungal and viral. Nothing is working. She sleeps a lot and she seems miserable. Whatever is happening is throwing off her glucose numbers too. The vet called today and recommended that I take her to a dermatologist specialist for allergy testing. I've already spent $800 this month at the vets and the dermatologist would be another $500-$1200 for the initial visit and testing. The $1200 range is if the tests come back positive and they start treatment. Between the continual cost for her diabetes treatment and then this I just don't know what to do. I'm extremely stressed out and I feel horrible for considering euthanasia but I can't keep shelling out this kind of money in such a short period. If it were spaced out it would be more manageable but this is really difficult. I'm already spending a lot of money paying back school loans. My vet also said the costs could keep going up at the dermatologist because if its not an allergy and they can't determine what it is they'll want to do ultrasounds and more blood tests, so on and so forth and I could be looking at another thousand just in diagnostics. Its killing me because she's not happy right now but I feel like if this were gone she would be a happy cat.
The photo below shows the current condition of her eye. Its greasy from the ointment and a bit crusty because yellow discharge comes from the eye. I clean it daily but I wanted to show what it looks like before I can clean it. She squints that eye a lot too. Thus far it hasn't spread beyond that point of her head or to her other eye.
