Please help! Two kittens with coccidia!

[catwoman707]

One more thing, great to hear you got the marquis paste btw!
That is one BIG tube, it does have a long shelf life, like 18 months or 2 yrs, and even beyond that it hasn't lost it's potency, but you might want to share the wealth some and see if there are any other rescues who will go in halves at least, you will never be able to use the.....128 mls? Can't think of the tube amt off hand.
Just a suggestion since it's pricey.

 

[catman925]

awesome thank you. I was able to get it mixed just fine. Initially wasn't too sure on how to extract 5ml of paste from such a big tube, but figured out 5ml=1tsp and had a small medicine measuring cup in teaspoons so I was able to tap that down to line up at 1tsp.
Gave everyone their first dose today. Fingers crossed and hope to free up my two bathrooms in a couple days
Last question: I've seen you're supposed to store the mixed solution in a light-blocking container in the fridge. Is that correct? And do you store the tube itself in the fridge as well?

Thanks
--Art

 

[catwoman707]

Mixed solution yes, but once diluted I would not trust it's potency beyond a short time period, which is why you want to only dilute the approx amt needed for treatment at that time.
The Marquis paste is NOT refrigerated, room temp in a cupboard is fine.

Hoping to see you doing a happy poop dance soon!

 

[catman925]

Hoping to see you doing a happy poop dance soon!

me too! Right now, I'm doing the slow sloggy Diarrhea Waltz

 

[Swordfish1948]

Catwoman707, question for you. So glad to have found a recent post about Ponazuril in cats and someone who knows about it! Sorry for the long-winded post!

We fostered a litter of kittens in the last couple of months. While I already had 5 adult cats, I had never heard of coccidia. I've just never had a cat with it and didn't have any experience with it. Now after doing a lot of reading, I am finding out how prevalent it is in kittens b/c their immune systems don't fight it off like adult cats. The kittens had a fecal done around 6-8 weeks and nothing showed up. So I felt ok letting other cats be around them. Well we found out a couple of weeks after that they had coccidia. And this was after everyone had been exposed to each other. Little did I know then that often worms and parasites don't show up in kittens until later even when they are infected. I wish someone had explained this to me!

Anyway, our vet said most likely our adult cats would be ok. Well one of them got it, Petey. Ugh. Poor guy feels like crap. He spent a lot of time with one of the kittens that we ended up adopting (P.S., the kittens were previously treated with Albon from the rescue vet). The other cats seems to be fine, all poop from them is normal. I took Petey to the vet last Thursday after finally realizing which cat had the diarrhea (had seen diarrhea in boxes for a couple of days). They unfortunately were almost out of Ponazuril, but had enough to give him one dose. The full doses of medicine came in yesterday. We treated him last night (along with our other cats since they had been exposed) and will give everyone a second dose tonight. That is all our vet prescribed for them. (Plus the infected cat is also on metronidazole and fortiflora). I'm been trying to keep Petey up in our bedroom during all of this to minimize spreading, but that is starting to get annoying and he is not happy. I let him out for a couple of hours when we get home and if he goes in one of the boxes that the others are using, I scoop it out right away.

So my question is about cleaning. I have read how it is extremely difficult to kill coccidia and that you have to steam, use ammonia, etc. We plan to do a full blast of our house the next night following their last dose - so we will give them the last dose tonight, then we will clean tomorrow night. I guess I want to give it a full 24 hours after the last does for hopefully most of the coccidia to be killed before spending hours disinfecting. But I am seriously stressing out about being able to get everything clean enough. I have bought new litter boxes, mats, etc and will throw all the old ones away and put out the new ones tomorrow night. I plan to steam the floors with our steam cleaner and wash their bedding in an ammonia solution, plus mop with ammonia in areas near the litter boxes. I will also make sure there are new water and crunchie bowls out everyday. But what else can I do? I can't put ammonia on the sofas, the rugs, etc....all the various places that the cats walk all over. I know I won't be able to get rid of it all.

What is your experience with the cleaning and reinfection? Should I keep Petey seperate for so many days following the last dose? Or can he come out and I just make sure to scoop boxes like crazy and maybe dump litter and refresh in a few days, then again in another few days, etc? I am going to use litter pan liners so that I can just lift out and the box will be clean. I was also thinking of putting towels out by the boxes instead of mats for a week or so, so I can just put a new one down everyday and ammonia wash the dirty ones.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

You can use F10 diluted in a spray bottle for your whole house including soft furnishings . Its not cheap around $100 per litre,but the dilution rate is high so very economical .

 

[catwoman707]

me too! Right now, I'm doing the slow sloggy Diarrhea Waltz

Hey I think I remember that dance too! Like this.....

 

[catman925]

You can use F10 diluted in a spray bottle for your whole house including soft furnishings . Its not cheap around $100 per litre,but the dilution rate is high so very economical .

I'm not sure what F10 is, but I can concur with this. Normal ammonia-based products you find at the store will NOT do the trick. The have a concentration of about 2.5% ammonia. In order to kill coccidia using ammonia, you need to use a solution with at least 10% ammonia, which I'm figuring is pretty darn strong stuff. You'll need to find yourself some pure ammonia unless there is a product that has 10% ammonia in it already. Be aware there are products marketed as "Pure Ammonia" that are really a 5% or less solution. All the resources I've seen state you need a 10% solution.

In my run-in with Coccidia, I ended up steam-cleaning my entire house using a store bought hard floor steamer and using the cleaner Rescue (Accel) by Virox Animal Health (Rescue (Accel) Disinfectant). Rescue is what one of our local spay/neuter clinics (think 100+ animals fixed in a single day) uses to clean their surgery tables in between animals and is used by rescues, vets and shelters for disinfecting. Supposedly, it kills everything. Unfortunately, on the topic on whether it kills coccidia or not, the Virox website stated that Canadian law prohibits anyone from claiming their products can kill parasites, so they were not allowed to say their product kills coccidia or giardia. My thinking, and I hope I'm right, is that Virox most likely would not have specifically pointed this out unless their product does actually kill it. I can say however that I haven't had a case of Coccidia again so far that originated from my house (it takes 2 weeks to show symptoms) and I have a continuously replenished supply of new fosters that come through my house.

It did take me an immense amount of time cleaning though.

It is important to note: when steam-cleaning, you MUST hold the steamer on whatever you're cleaning for at least 20 seconds for it to be effective. 20 seconds may not seem like a long time, but believe me, when you're working with a steamer head say app. 4" x 8" and you need to clean a room with carpet wall to wall and you need to hold the steamer on EVERY 4"x8" piece of that carpet for 20 seconds each, then add in all the carpets in the rest of the house, plus sofas, beds, curtains etc, whatever the cats walked on (which, let's face it, is practically everything but the ceiling)....well, you can do the math. It took me 3 months.

Just want to warn you to expect to do much more thorough cleaning than a single night if, like me, you weren't aware of the Coccidia being present and any infected cats had access to everything in your house. Also bear in mind how cats are. They will inevitably track small bits of feces after using the litter box, they clean themselves and each other using their tongues. Coccidia is spread through feces. The oocysts become infective within hours and can last in the environment for 1 YEAR, with or without damp conditions. You can kill them in direct sunlight, but in order to do so, you would need to leave them in direct sunlight for at least 1 month.

These things are seriously hard to kill off. But after all that doom and gloom, at least you do have access to Ponazuril which will kill Coccidia (albon only interrupts life cycle until cat's immune system kills the Coccidia).

A very good (and respected resource) video to help shine some light on Coccidia is here:
Maddie's Fund - Vet to Vet Ponazuril Protocols: http://www.maddiesfund.org/vet-to-vet-ponazuril-protocols.htm

Cleaning for 3 months (not continuously of course) may have been overkill, but since I always have new ferals and kittens coming through, I personally wanted to make sure I was as thorough as I could be.

my 67¢ worth.
-Art

 

[catman925]

Hi Art!

Yes, the correct advised dilution is 5 mls of paste to 12 mls water, once diluted store in fridge.
That said, I ran in to a vet who said to dilute it less, that it's safe to do and will eliminate any need to re-treat again.
So I only dilute the paste enough so that I am able to draw the solution up with the 1 ml syringe.
It's closer to 50/50

Once per day, 3-5 days in a row depending on how bad the diarrhea is. Knock that bug right out of them.

hi Catwoman 707

I was looking at the dilution instructions for Ponazuril on the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine website (available here: https//www.sheltermedicine.com/library/resources/?utf8=✓&search%5Bslug%5D=diluting-marquis-paste) and I'm thinking the 5ml paste to 12ml water dilution is incorrect.

In their instructions, take a look at the relative proportions in the two dilution examples they give (one for 50ml, another for "smaller amounts"). In both, the amount of water to paste is actually half as opposed to 5ml paste to 12ml water which is a dilution of more than twice water to paste. I think I've seen that there are different concentrations of Marquis paste out there, but that wouldn't change the relative proportions used in diluting.

The dilutions they give (50ml paste to 12.5ml syrup + 12.5ml water [call this 25ml dilutant] and 20ml paste to 5ml syrup + 5ml water [10ml dilutant]) work out to the formula:

x paste to x/2 dilutant

Thoughts on this?

 

[catman925]

I'm not sure what F10 is, but I can concur with this. Normal ammonia-based products you find at the store will NOT do the trick. The have a concentration of about 2.5% ammonia. In order to kill coccidia using ammonia, you need to use a solution with at least 10% ammonia, which I'm figuring is pretty darn strong stuff. You'll need to find yourself some pure ammonia unless there is a product that has 10% ammonia in it already. Be aware there are products marketed as "Pure Ammonia" that are really a 5% or less solution. All the resources I've seen state you need a 10% solution.

In my run-in with Coccidia, I ended up steam-cleaning my entire house using a store bought hard floor steamer and using the cleaner Rescue (Accel) by Virox Animal Health (Rescue (Accel) Disinfectant). Rescue is what one of our local spay/neuter clinics (think 100+ animals fixed in a single day) uses to clean their surgery tables in between animals and is used by rescues, vets and shelters for disinfecting. Supposedly, it kills everything. Unfortunately, on the topic on whether it kills coccidia or not, the Virox website stated that Canadian law prohibits anyone from claiming their products can kill parasites, so they were not allowed to say their product kills coccidia or giardia. My thinking, and I hope I'm right, is that Virox most likely would not have specifically pointed this out unless their product does actually kill it. I can say however that I haven't had a case of Coccidia again so far that originated from my house (it takes 2 weeks to show symptoms) and I have a continuously replenished supply of new fosters that come through my house.

It did take me an immense amount of time cleaning though.

It is important to note: when steam-cleaning, you MUST hold the steamer on whatever you're cleaning for at least 20 seconds for it to be effective. 20 seconds may not seem like a long time, but believe me, when you're working with a steamer head say app. 4" x 8" and you need to clean a room with carpet wall to wall and you need to hold the steamer on EVERY 4"x8" piece of that carpet for 20 seconds each, then add in all the carpets in the rest of the house, plus sofas, beds, curtains etc, whatever the cats walked on (which, let's face it, is practically everything but the ceiling)....well, you can do the math. It took me 3 months.

Just want to warn you to expect to do much more thorough cleaning than a single night if, like me, you weren't aware of the Coccidia being present and any infected cats had access to everything in your house. Also bear in mind how cats are. They will inevitably track small bits of feces after using the litter box, they clean themselves and each other using their tongues. Coccidia is spread through feces. The oocysts become infective within hours and can last in the environment for 1 YEAR, with or without damp conditions. You can kill them in direct sunlight, but in order to do so, you would need to leave them in direct sunlight for at least 1 month.

These things are seriously hard to kill off. But after all that doom and gloom, at least you do have access to Ponazuril which will kill Coccidia (albon only interrupts life cycle until cat's immune system kills the Coccidia).

A very good (and respected resource) video to help shine some light on Coccidia is here:
Maddie's Fund - Vet to Vet Ponazuril Protocols: http://www.maddiesfund.org/vet-to-vet-ponazuril-protocols.htm

Cleaning for 3 months (not continuously of course) may have been overkill, but since I always have new ferals and kittens coming through, I personally wanted to make sure I was as thorough as I could be.

my 67¢ worth.
-Art

For completion's sake, I should really add in here that for the 3 months time cleaning, I'm not really the cleanest guy in the world nor really the most motivated and I elected to wash the cat bedding and materials rather than throwing them out so the 3 months timeline is relative.

Main point though, if you're very determined to eradicate all traces of coccidia from your house (although I'm told this is rather futile if not entirely impossible), your cleaning time will and should be longer than a one day job.

 

[Gatinho Bonita]

Hi, could someone confirm something that I read on an earlier post in this thread...if you give ponazaril, you do NOT need to be as worried about re-infection? I guess the thought process would be that the oocysts would be killed rather than being shred?

I've read so much, my head is dizzy. My vet was of no assistance (I was the one who begged for ponazaril rather than Albon, I had to send her info explaining it) and I've read I need to bathe my kitty, steam clean furniture, practically burn sheets. I have been cleaning her litter box immediately after she uses it and I've been wiping her bottom with kitten wipes.

Thank you, in advance, for any help.

 

[Gatinho Bonita]

shed...I mean