Check before you buy a pet tooth brush as the toothpaste often has one in the packaging. If it's an enzyme toothpaste the silicone ones you often get with the paste are OK and not too hard on the cat's mouth once any severe redness or lesions have settled. Mouse always has a red rim around at least some of his teeth and he's happy with me using the silicone finger brush as long as I don't rub too hard or for too long. When he was a kitten I think he just took it as a license to chew my finger and thought the whole tooth brushing thing was great.
As you have seen the vet now and hopefully you can talk to them over the phone: Ask the vet if they "have any worries about Simba's overall health with his virus - which ever one it is, like kidney or liver function". Try and start it with 'genera'l or 'overall' and not specific to avoid giving them pointers to try and get you to pay for more tests or anything. If they say no then don't be panicked and think you have to pay and get test done! If they haven't had concerns before they shouldn't suddenly start if you ask. . If the virus is FHV he shouldn't have these unless he's got some other health problem.
If Simba had issues with either of these and you wanted to give L Lysine, the vet would probably advise against it because it affects how other proteins are processed and further stress is placed on the liver and kidneys. There's good information about it in some of the FHV threads that you can read through. Some people give L Lysine for non FHV cats but some (like me) are more cautious because of the low level of risk with the effect it has on protein metabolism, hence my earlier post comment about it being 'OK to do for a couple of weeks' to see if it helped when you couldn't get to a vet. The benefit to FHV cats is pretty widely accepted to outweigh the risks other than for kitties with liver and kidney function problems as above.
Good luck writing out your little script for calling the vet., I hope I haven't made it all sound too complicated and scary because it isn't, and I do not think the vet should not need to do any more tests to be able to give you a decision. I just don't want you spending on things that are not necessary or not safe to use for some reason.
Tell me when you want me to sh... up.
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