Thursday, April 13, 2006

Feline Herpes

So, Larry has had feline herpes ever since he was a kitten. Feline herpes is not passed to humans at all and it is something that they will have for the rest of their lives. Like in most cats with FH they have this black stuff that coats their eyelids and pools this crusty black stuff in the corner of their eyes.

We had these eye drops for him before that had steriods in them that we got from one vet, but then we swtiched vets and the information never got over there. So, when he got it again we just used the old stuff we had left over as they wanted us to bring him back in (which is a very painful ride, he hates riding in cars) because they didn't have any documentation of the diagnosis and I really didn't to pay for a vet visit for them to tell me what I already knew and they could have found out fromthe other vet (across the street) if the information would ever get there. When I had to take him in for his annual shots he was fine and there was nothing to show and they told me I could just rinse his eyes out with saline solution and that would help clear it up because the tear ducts were not working properly to flush them out because they were crudded up with that stuff.

So, anyways, I did some research online about the saline thing and also found out that many vet optamologists recommend the saline flush and l-lysine (amino acid supplement that you can buy in the human section of vitamins and crush up) put into their food.

So, for the past couple days Larry has been getting a 500mg crushed tablet of L-lysine split into 2 servings of tuna. He has certainly been enjoying getting tuna twice a day and I notice that his eye seems to be clearing up. We are also doing the saline flushes. So, hopefully this will continue to work and help the big guy. If not, I guess I'll just have to bring him in and get the diagnosis & get the drops, or get that other vet to get that info to the other one.

5 comments:

Lame Shrill Owl said...

Yes, saline is the stuff you use for your contacts....the stuff that costs just over a dollar for a bottle of the generic stuff.....

How did you pay the vet for the L-lysine?

I paid $2.72 @ Wal-Mart for 100 tablets of 500mg. So, for around $4 I got the L-lysine & saline and it will last a long time. But you'll want to get a mortar & pestal to grind it -- that's the easiest way to grind them. I think I picked mine up at Big Lots last year for about $5.

Lame Shrill Owl said...

Oh - about the sneezing -- he used to do that too when he was a kitten and got the black crud around his mouth and the vet told us he could be allergic to plastic, so that is when we stopped using plastic dishes and got metal & ceramic ones.....so, you might want to try a metal or ceramic/glass food dish for the cats if you haven't already.

Once we got rid of the plastic the crud around his mouth went away and the sneezing went away.....the eye stuff stayed.....and then we got the feline herpes diagnosis....

CatWoman said...

Poor Larry.
Such slackers at the vets huh?
I didn't think it could be so complicated to fax over a medical record.

Lame Shrill Owl said...

His eye has been all cleaned up for a few days now, but I am still giving the lysine for a little while longer.....

It cleared up in about the same amount of time that the steroids...

And Larry is much more happy about the lysine.....he gets tuna more often....I don't even think he notices the vitamin mixed in...

Andy said...

We could put a roofing nail in his tuna and he wouldn't notice it...