posted 02-04-2004 01:42 PM         

Before I begin, I want to say that I always advocate taking your kitty to the vet if he/she is doing anything abnormal. And for yearly visits otherwise. Also, if you ever feel uncomfortable with the job your vet is doing, try asking around about the vets in the area. Don't just stick with someone you don't feel is doing a good and thorough job. If your cat is 8 or older, please have your vet run senior a blood panel and a urinalysis every year to try to catch problems early. You might not catch everything, but you run a better chance than not doing this. Many vets will offer these programs. When I lost my 10 year old male 8 years ago, my vet didn't have this program. It could have caught his liver problem in time to do something about it.

Most of this information was gleened from veterinarian responses given over the internet and various other sites and the rest is my own experience. One of my favorite sources of information is www.vetinfo.com. Many people wrote in to ask questions of the DVM and he wrote many great responses. I wish this program were still available, but I suppose the liability was too great.

If you're looking for holistic treatments, the holisticat archives are a good source of info... www.holisticat.com

Common Kitty Condition 1
-Colds and Conjunctivitis-

The kitty "cold" is usually a virus, namely the feline herpes virus. Approximately 80% of the cat population has this virus. It's as common in cats as in humans (anyone ever have chicken pox? it's a herpes virus).
Other causes include feline calicivirus and bacterial infections. However, usually the kitty has the herpes version. Although I've never seen a cold caused by bacteria, it apparently looks different than the usual herpes version. Your vet will know when testing the type of infectious factor is necessary.

If you look up "conjunctivitis in cats" on google, you'll come up with a good deal of information on this topic.

Your vet may give you antibiotics to give orally or may give you some as an ointment for the eye (if the conjunctiva is inflamed). This will NOT get rid of the kitty cold, if it is the common herpes virus. It will only help your cat to not get a secondary infection. Your cat will have to get better all on its own. What you're doing with these medications is helping your pet to not get something worse. Always give your pet all of the antibiotic unless told otherwise by your vet. Stopping early could cause a super bacterial infection, if there was one to start with.

As a home therapy, many people give their cats l-lysine at 250mg twice a day. I give this to my cats and have had success with it. This is an amino acid that blocks the herpes virus from functioning properly. It doesn't cure your kitty or clean the virus from the system, but it could help the cat get over the virus more quickly than without it. It especially seems to help when given at the first onset of symptoms or as a regular part of the diet.

If you are not having success with what your vet has give you and the lysine doesn't seem to be working after a few days, you might ask your vet about anti-viral medications avaliable for cats.

Most kitties will get over this in one to two weeks, but sometimes lasts much longer.

References:
http://www.vetinfo.com/cherpes.html http://www.holisticat.com/lysine_arch1.html

Common Kitty Condition 2
-Kitty Not Eating-

Growing up, I always thought that a cat will eat until he is about to die. When the cat stops eating, you'd better be prepared to lose him. I've learned since then that you shouldn't necessarily give up. You should ALWAYS talk to a vet if this starts happening, especially if he is losing weight.

The problem could be behaviorial (finicky behavior, scared, lost from his routine, etc.) or medical (tooth infection, organ failure, cancer, etc.), or what I would term mechanical (nose isn't working as it should). Whatever the reason, note how the cat responds to his world. Is he hiding? lethargic? "depressed"? This should be noted when you go to the vet and your vet should do a blood panel workup on him.

You may need to either hospitalize or force feed your kitty. If you can keep food down the cat, it may be less tramatic for him to be at home, but I could not recommend either course of action. It depends on the situation.

I wouldn't take much of a wait and see attitude with cats. Skipping one meal may not mean much, but if kitty isn't eating by that evening or the next morning, take him straight to the vet. As I've mentioned on several posts today, cats can easily develop hepatic lipidosis, especially if the cat is overweight.
Hepatic lipidosis is caused when the body tries to compensate for the reduced food intake by using stored fat cells for energy. These get moved into the liver and stay there, making the kitty feel worse and worse as the liver fails. If you can avoid adding this to whatever was causing him to not eat in the first place, you and the cat would be better off.

There are things vets prescribe to stimulate appetite. I have never used a prescription to do this, however. It is something that you might ask your vet about.

To force calories into the system, you could try a product called "nutrical". It has some vitamins and is a high calorie malt looking substance (like furball petromalt, only slightly thinner). Your cat might start eating after the sugar rush (ask I saw one person describe it). My cats won't touch the stuff, so I have to put it on my index finger and smear it on the roof of their mouths. They glare at me, but don't get much of it anywhere except down their throats.

If it gets really bad, your vet might need to insert a stomach tube.

As I said, there are many reasons for this kind of thing, so it all depends on the situation.

Here's a vetinfo reference:
http://www.vetinfo.com/chepatic.html#appetite

This is probably getting pretty long, so I will end this as part 1 and continue with part 2 later.