My cat has the sniffles, calling for help!

Alyada

Alyada

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Alyada
Hey guys,

My cat, Tutterbutter, has the sniffles. I'm trying to avoid a vet visit until I know it's a serious problem because I'm lacking in the money department.

My cat is an all black American short hair. He's been sneezing a lot the past day or two. His appetite has dissapeared and he's rubbing his face a lot more (and stressing out his left eye by rubbing himself bald right above it).

He's got a history of nasal problems and some of them are chronic and will be with him for the rest of his life (partly why we choose him, who wants a snuffulupugus as a pet? Me.) However, I'm just wondering if any other cat people have had this issue and seen it go away or if you had to seek vet assistance for medication/antibiotics.

I've got a nice little spray that I bought at petsmart for his hot spot above his head, but for the sniffles I don't know what to do.

Any wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
 
My mother's cat Sophie was the runt of her litter. And in being so, had some issues with her nasal passageways. She was constantly boogering everywhere and never had a clean nose.

It was cute at first. But then when she got older and we had her checked out, she had an infection growing in her nasal cavity. We used a nebulizer and fed the medicined gas into a kitty carrier so she could get treatment that way. This continued on for a good couple of years. But in the end, the stress got to her. Or rather, the infection did. It encroached on her brain. And she ended up dying in my mothers arms at a short lived 11 years. (indoor cat, I expect those guys to go at least 13!)

It all depends what kind of nasal problem the snuffulupugus has. Hope it's somethin simple and that it gets remedied easily! :D

Google find anything for ya? Bound to be a petmd site around somewhere.
 
It might be a common variant of the herpes simplex virus that targets cats. Like other forms of herpes, it's a chronic condition that can cause sores in the cat's nose, mouth, and eyes. Flare ups occur when the cat is stressed in some fashion.

First thing you need to do is attend to the cat's appetite. He needs to eat, or he won't get better. If he's eating hard food, switch to soft. If you're normally giving him soft food and he's not eating, try mixing in the juice from a can of tuna in water to make the food more appetizing. If he still doesn't eat, you may have to force-feed him by taking fingerfuls of food and smearing it on the roof of his mouth. Regardless of how it happens, he needs to get some food in him.

Along with feeding him, you'll want to try giving him a lysine supplement. Lysine is an essential amino acid that helps to ameliorate the virus. Our herpes kitten was on a half-teaspoon twice a day, but since it's a perfectly safe dietary supplement you could probably give up to a teaspoon twice a day without worry. You can get lysine online without a problem, petmeds.com has it for like $12-15 a tube. You might even be able to get it at someplace like petsmart, I never looked there though so I can't say for sure.

If it's actually herpes, then the soft foods and lysine should clear it up in a few days. To help prevent further outbreaks, you'd need to remove the sources of stress in the cat's environment. Since cats have it pretty easy for the most part, that just boils down to keeping them indoors if possible, and making sure they get good quality food. Anything with corn, corn meal, or "meat by-product" sucks; the best-priced quality food I've found is actually the Kirkland Super Premium brand at Costco, half the price of Iams and better quality ingredients. We've had our herpes kitty on Kirkland since we got them, and he hasn't had a herpes outbreak in almost two years.

If the kitty keeps refusing to eat despite your best attempts, you're just going to have to suck it up and take him to a vet. Kitties who go too long without food can get something called "fatty liver syndrome"; the rapid breakdown of fat cells in the liver during starvation periods will overload the whole thing and the cat dies of liver failure. The fatter your kitty is to start with, the faster this will happen, so if you've got a real tubster don't think you can just wait and see for too long. I hope it doesn't get to that point though.
 
I don't think it's feline herpes. The shelter we got him from said he could have problems.

Though, I did take your advice Fellina and gave him some wet food. He ate a majority of it so thank Cthulhu for that. We're going to monitor it and see if he doesn't get better within a few days.

We also feed him anything that has meat (and real meat) as the first two ingredients. Mostly it ends up being Iams but I will try that Kirkland stuff. We're very picky about his diet.

Someone suggested feline benedril. Do you guys think that would be okay?
 
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Alyada said:
I don't think it's feline herpes. The shelter we got him from said he could have problems.

Though, I did take your advice Fellina and gave him some wet food. He ate a majority of it so thank Cthulhu for that. We're going to monitor it and see if he doesn't get better within a few days.

We also feed him anything that has meat (and real meat) as the first two ingredients. Mostly it ends up being Iams but I will try that Kirkland stuff. We're very picky about his diet.

Someone suggested feline benedril. Do you guys think that would be okay?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I've used that on one of my cats before (I've had four cats, I forget) and it seemed to work pretty well. Feeding medicine to cats is the toughest part though so good luck with that.
 
Realia said:
I'm pretty sure I've used that on one of my cats before (I've had four cats, I forget) and it seemed to work pretty well. Feeding medicine to cats is the toughest part though so good luck with that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we went ahead and tried it. He gagged, cut my fiance to shreds, and I finally just shoved it down his throat. He wasn't too happy.
 
Just sounds like he has a cold to me, nothing to get excited about. Just buy some medicine online for respiratory infections. My parents barn cats get colds a lot because they are all but wild. (When they bought the property, they came with the barn) The kittens always get colds and the vet we use for our dogs and horses gives us a supply of ophthalmic ointment (for the eye goopies) and amoxicillin tabs on hand.
 
Tutterbutter does NOT like his medicine.
tutterbutterspit.jpg
 
lol poor kitty
 
LOL poor thing!

Our boy kitty had the sniffles for a week or so before we got concerned enough to take him to the vet. They took xrays of his chest and sent us home with a large vet bill and the diagnosis of a common cold. -.- It lasted 2-3 weeks I think in total before he was better.

Things to watch for that indicate you should take him to the vet (according to my vet) were breathing through his mouth rather than nose, not drinking or eating, and problems breathing. It's natural that he'll eat less with a cold, because who is hungry when they're sick?

But, if he's not eating at all you may just want to cough up the dough and take him in. However, make sure they have a very good reason before you let them take any x-rays or do anything similar because that ups your bill from ~$40 to over $120.
 
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