Malaysia Veterinary Forum (Archive)

thlim6 · Joined: 30 Jul 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Penang

have a female cat close to a year old. bought it when it was about 5 months old from a farm in Gombak, said to have given the kitten it's routine jab and will only need to jab again in a year's time.
two months ago, she started coughing and has running nose with white liquid coming out of it's nose, which later turns into green phelgm.
brought it to a nearby vet who prescribed me with 2 type of medicine, green antibiotic (half, twice a day)and white flu tablet (half a day). the running nose stopped. continued the prescribtion until finished.
days later, the symptom started again, went to the vet again, same prescription given.
again, it happened about 2 weeks ago, went to same vet, get the same prescription, but this time the doc told me, the cat cannot be cured as the virus is in the nasal of the kitten.
is this true??
am having a big problem as i got 3 kids at home who constantly hug the kitten. is this virus contagious?? do i need to put the cat to sleep??

ashleywong · Joined: 25 Sep 2007 Posts: 80 Location: Tmn Desa, KL

hi thlim6

perhaps you'd like to take your kitten to another vet for 2nd opinion? it would be better that you get proper advice from your vet rather than poll for opinions here, mostly because most of us are not vets and for those who has some background, they can't give you any answers just based on your description.

please do not take the word of the "farm" from where you buy your kitten at face value. unless they provide you with documentation that the kitten was indeed given vaccination (with the sticker from the vaccination bottle containing manufacturing date and expiry date and date the vaccine was given to the kitten).

if you go back to your vet, please do have a thorough discussion with your vet to address all your concerns, your vet would be happy to talk with you and offer advice or suggestions. if you don't mind the extra payment, do ask for a test to be done on your kitten for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus. these two can't spread to human but it's not good for your kitten. tell your vet if you're not sure whether your kitten is really vaccinated and your vet will advise you accordingly.

most animals' illness and disease cannot spread to humans although they are exceptions. you need to check with your vet.

do keep us posted on your kitten's progress.

all the best

thlim6 · Joined: 30 Jul 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Penang

hi ashley,

thanks for the feedback/inputs.

had actually taken the kitten to another vet last friday and were given 3 types of medication from the doc. clavamox 62.5mg, enisyl-f l-lysine hci and a yellowish white tablet with the marking of H/D.

white saliva discharge was seen when the kitten is fed with the yellowish white tablet. suspect that it was to reduce the running nose, thus stopped feeding the kitten this.

as for clavamox, read that it is sort of an antibiotics, and the kitten showed no bad response towards it, continue feeding.

enisyl-f is sort of a supplement, and the other kitten also likes it's taste when mix on the cat food.

my kitten looks a bit ok now but still has the occasional sneeze. read that the medication might take about 7 days to show effects.

as for the vaccination, brought the card given when i bought the kitten to the vet. looks good.

yes, seems like the cat disease are unlikely to transmit to human (pheew) but has a likelihood to transfer to my other kitten. am still thinking of what i should do here.

will be going back to the vet again this weekend for a follow up check.

thanks.

ashleywong · Joined: 25 Sep 2007 Posts: 80 Location: Tmn Desa, KL

hi

hope you won't think i'm butting in if i offer some suggestions. i'd say, finances permitting, the next step is to ensure that your kitten receive its booster vaccinations after it has recover from his current flu.

perhaps it's better you call up your vet to inform of the kitten's reaction after taking one of the tablet (which you have since taken it off the medication) your vet would be in a better position to inform the reaction is normal or not, whether you should continue with it or change it, etc. who knows, maybe the medication is required but maybe your kitten is having a reaction and your vet can change it for you?

regardless whether you choose to keep the kitten or foster it temporarily, giving the kitten its full vaccinations will go a long way to ensure that it has the immune system to stand up to a host of illness / viruses going around and reduces the changes of the kitten falling sick and also reduces it being spread around. ditto for the FeLV and FeIV vaccinations. if the kitten has not taken the FeLV and FeIV, pls do consider giving your kittens this shot. your kitten may not have it now but once if he gets infected, then he'll have it for life, not to mention the extra expenses in treating him. also you'd have the peace of mind that both your cat (the elder one) and the kitten are protected and will never give each other FeIV and FeLV.

so it's always better not to be penny wise but pound foolish - i know this sounds hard but talking dollars and cents always make sense, you know...

all the best and my regards to your family and furrykids too.

thlim6 · Joined: 30 Jul 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Penang

yep, was thinking about the booster shots too if it do helps (anyway, the kittens will be a year soon and will need the yearly jab in about a month's time also). and like what you mentioned, can only consider this after the kitten has recovered. anyway, will let the vet diagnose the kitten first. if it's confirmed a need, will do it asap.

ah... one question, when you say full vaccination, how many jabs is given to the cat? for both my cats, there is just one type of similar type of sticker on their vaccination card. did not have it with me currently, thus am not sure if the jab consist of full vaccination or need further jabs?

the current medication minus the H/D stuff looks good currently, however, will need to reconfirm with the doc on saturday morning again, just to make sure my hearing was correct that it was to reduce and clears up the nose block.

thanks again.

Dr Dunker · Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 463 Location: Puchong,Selangor

Hi, i missed this thread completely. Anyway, flu in kittens are fairly common and do tend to be hard to get rid off. One of the reason is that there is a number of agents that can cause similar symptoms in a cat and most of them are viral to begin with. In many cases secondary infections set in due to bacterial infection leading to the use of antibiotics such as the one you stated. While it may not cure flu outright but it does make them better. Enisyl is lysine spelled backwards and that's what it contains. Its an amino asid that is known to slow to stop replication of some viruses that cause flu.

Vaccination of cats reduce the chance of flu but it does not stop them all together since you only vaccinate for several agents (chlamydia, herpis and calici) out of many agents. On top of it severe immuno depression due to disease (FIV) or stress can cause your cat to be susceptible to flu. The combination of these factors makes it hard to cure outright and can be very frustrating to the owners and vets alike. Good supportive care such as a comfortable and clean environment as well as good nutrition are just as important as pumping drugs into the system. Usage of eye drops in the event your cat get secondary eye infections (conjunctivitis) would help as well. Your cat a Persian by any chance?

Dr Dunker · Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 463 Location: Puchong,Selangor

Your second question about full vaccination is an interesting one. The norm in this country is to vaccinate with your standard 4 in one vacc. The company you would likely encounter on your vaccine card would be Fort Dodge and your normally cover for the 3 virus i mentioned earlier and feline parvo( aka felinie enteraitis or feline panleucopenia or FPL all mean the same thing). TO add on these some people add rabies which is not normaly needed in the selangor area unless you want to bring your cat overseas.

The rest would be FeLV and FIV (AIDS in cats). These two vaccination require that your cat be tested first before any injections of this type are given. Also there is some debate on how effective the FIV vaccines are. Lastly another common vaccine would be the FIP vaccine (feline Infectious Peritonitis). The first 4 (4 in 1, rabise, FIV and FeLV) vaccines are injections but the last one comes in drops that the vet will drop in the nose. It is, for me one of the harder vaccine to do coz even nice cats get pissed when you drop stuff into their noses.

thlim6 · Joined: 30 Jul 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Penang

DrDrunker,

thanks for the advise.

my cats are still very energetic and playful, and that one will only stop occasionally to sneeze out the phelgm. whenever i had the chance, will catch it and wipe the phelgm out and the cat will be ok... (well, anyone can teach the cat to blow it's nose??.... haha).

as for the environment, they are staying in separate cages in my living room. will let them out whenever i am at home. litter clean every night when i am back. thus, think the environment should be quite ok.

btw, my cats are of american shorthair breed.

thlim6 · Joined: 30 Jul 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Penang

hi all,

been sometime since i login to update the progress on my cats (yep, they are a year and 2 mths old now).

last update was bring my lady to another doc. after few rounds of treatments, it seems like the flu/phelgm did come on and off, especially after stopping the medication.

talked to the doc and he seems to say that the cat can't be cured using the normal medication available and has to live with it also... depressed. but he did give me a valuable input that the problem might be due to nasal itchyness...

well, went back and felt a bit down but quickly act on doc's word as a last resort... bought a bottle of cod liver oil and also a baby "nasal" cleanser...

also, suspicious on the litter sand being too fine, swap to a coarser type.

those 3 items...... with a bit of patient holding the cat down while doing the nasal cleaning routine...

the cat is now fully cured and you can see her running around without any symptom of out of breath at all...

well, just a bit of fishy smell from eating the cod liver oil.... and my cat is totally cured now.....

haha........ happy now and hopefully, can have litters of kittens soon....