Treatment options for mom's sick non-diabetic kitty

My mom's kitty, the kitty I grew up with, Sassy, has been having issues for years now. She sneezes a lot (with mucus - yuck!) and has really really bad smelly pudding poo's. She has been on amoxicillin, doxy, and a few other antibiotics for 10 days each all on separate occasions. The mucus was cultured (mom said biopsied - but probably cultured) to show what antibiotics will work. I've been told that the ab's help while she is on it, but everything comes back when she goes off. She has been on rounds of pred for the past several years because it seems to be the only thing that will help. I had her try adding 250mg BID of L-lysine to her food for a few weeks and we noticed no difference. I am thinking either she needs a strong broad spectrum AB for at least 3-4 weeks or maybe she has a food allergy.

Has anyone every had this happen to their fur baby? What would you recommend trying next?

 

Have they tried doing a pulse type therapy with the ABs? One week on, one week off, or every other day or third day? Sometimes, no matter what you try, they will be chronic snot throwers.

 

Have not tried that. She goes back to normal while on the pred, and gets significantly better while on the ab's but when it is all stopped, it is a matter of time when everything comes back. Mom told me today that her poo is so rancid smelling that it will run you out of a room. That is her marker that she needs to go back on the pred.

 

Mr Tinkles has had a chronic URI since April, and he is finally getting over it. We tried two courses of AB (amoxicillin), one for a week and one for 2 weeks....it didn't work. The third time, we saw a different vet and she put him on a long course of Azithromycin...daily for 5 days, then every 3 days for 6 weeks. It took about 2 weeks to see any effect, but it's working now! The vet said that she has had very good luck with Azithy for this problem.

If you do go this route, get a script and call around to compounding pharmacies for prices. It's much cheaper (and tastes better!) to get it compounded, but prices do vary from pharmacy to pharmacy. If you get it from the vet or a regular pharmacy, you will have to get the cherry flavored liquid and refill it every 10 days....nasty tasting, expensive and a pain in the neck! It would have been more than 4 times the cost with a traditional script.

Good luck!

 

does this help? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_vir ... tracheitis

 

This was my initial thought, but she has been on 500mg daily of L-lysine for a month now and mom has seen absolutely no change. Plus the other kitty in the house shows no similar symptoms.

 

Thank you for this info! This sounds like something they haven't tried yet and would be good to bring up to her vet. She has an appointment next week for a regular check up anyway.