Acyclovir for possible FHV?

Hello,

My cat Akane has been sneezing and a bit lethargic so I took him to the vet. He eats all right but his meows have become hoarse and weak. He did not have fever but there was sound around his upper bronchial tube, the vet said. She told me that it might be FHV (feline herpesvirus) and dosed him interferon and prescribed anti viral medicine called "Acyclovir" twice daily for 5 days.

I have searched FHV in this board and found some threads saying that L-lysine will work well for sneeze, cold, FHV, FIV and URI. I searched Acyclovir on the internet and found sites that refer this med for FHV but one said that it is not recommended as it is hepato - toxic and could cause bone marrow suppression. From a book "Feline Patients"

And the other one is this. Feline Ophthalmology I gave him this evening but I would rather give L-lysine and see.. as the vet did not test if he really has FHV or not. Has anyone heard of this medicine ? Is it safe to use it?

 

In googling, it looks like it is used in corneal/conjunctival herpes, no studies on other herpes virus in animals.

IMHO! Not a vet! But IMHO, unless your cat is having repeated severe outbreaks and infection symptoms of herpes virus like colored discharge from eyes and nose, this drug seems like overkill. I would try simpler solutions first like lysine.

Basically, almost every single cat adopted from a shelter, and probably any found outside, have been exposed to and has herpesvirus. But, only some cats have ongoing issues with it, and of the cats that have ongoing issues, some of those cats only have symptoms when under stress.

 

Thank you very much for the info! I think this medicine is quite strong, too... Since my cat has mild symptoms without fever, I think I will be careful about using this medicine and try lysine instead and see. Thanks for your advice! :smile:

 

My older civie Kaleigh had issues with feline herpes when I first adopted her 8 years ago. The first three months I had her, it was one eye infection after another. My vet diagnosed herpes after the 2nd, I think, and we spent the next 2 months trying to find the right combination of medication for her. She was put first on Lysine, then Interferon, and finally Idoxuridine (eye drops). Once she was on all three daily, her symptoms finally resolved. She was on those medications for about 2 years, until we decided to see how she would do off them. She's been medication and symptom free since, thankfully. I'm with Lisa - unless Akane has been having severe symptoms, you might want to see about trying lysine first (also purely from my own experience - obviously I'm not a vet either). It comes in gel, treat, or capsule form.

I don't know if this is something that would work with herpes, but my other civie Rain has calici virus (I apparently can't have a cat unless there's something wrong with it :lol: ) and my vet actually treats her by giving her her panleuk/herpes/calici combo vaccination in an intranasal/intraocular form twice yearly. He's had a lot of luck in controlling chronic symptoms with that - for some reason, it seems to jump-start the immune system to fight the chronic symptoms. Rain hasn't had any symptoms since going on that (before she had developed an ulcerated paw and had some sneezing). I have no idea if it would do anything for the herpes virus, but it might be something worth looking into. We also used Lysine for Rain's chronic symptoms, although she hasn't needed it for a long time.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience with Kaleigh and Rain. It is always good to have information on how other kitties have coped. It is great that they are both well now! Since Akane's sneezing has stopped and his voice is a bit clearer, I will wait the delivery of Lysine. (No lysine is available here so importing from US!) Thanks :smile: