First I would like to address our situation regarding vets here. My husband is in the Air Force and we’re stationed on Okinawa. There is only one vet clinic on base here, and there are multiple problems with that clinic. I shall list a few:
You cannot get an appointment in less than a weeks time. It’s usually closer to three weeks.
You very, very rarely actually see a vet when you take your animal in. I’ve been there maybe 8 times and only ever seen vet-techs. I used to be a vet tech, so their knowledge isn’t going to be much better than mine. In fact…
The animal rescue organization I volunteer with, OAARS, recently had 9 very young kittens dumped on a member’s car. These kittens were bottle fed and treated off base for an eye infection and were looking good at about 7 weeks old when they were taken to the base vet. No vet was seen, but there were several techs in the room with the kittens. Each kitten was injected with 2ccs of Ivermectin, for deworming. Four were comatose within an hour, three died, all had to be hospitalized at great expense. The cost for the base visit was $300, and they refuse to refund that despite the fact that they killed three of the kittens. I have never seen ivermectin injected into dogs or cats as a dewormer. It’s possible that it’s sometimes done, but 2ccs in tiny kittens? No. After they left the clinic and it was obvious that something was very wrong with the kittens, they rushed back and actually did see a vet. The vet told them there was nothing he could do, the kittens were going to die, and he didn’t have time for this. Goodbye.
So I don’t really want to take her to the base. OAARS uses an off base vet who is wonderful, but there is a definite language barrier though he speaks some English.
This is Bean. About a week ago we found her on the side of the road, screaming, eyes crusted shut, sneezing some. She looked about three weeks old. I took her home and cleaned the eyes. The girl who was fostering the kittens who died had some leftover Clavamox (antibiotic) drops that weren’t expired yet, and some eye drops with Japanese writing on them. Since it was too late to take her to the vet that night, I used the clavamox and drops and bottle fed her, and by the morning she was looking much better (see the first photo of eyes–they look bad but they weren’t weeping anymore, and she had stopped sneezing). So it seems that she responded well to the antibiotics, which maybe suggests this could have been a bacterial infection, right?
I took her to the off basy). My main concern is that it’s feline herpes, but when I asked that they didn’t know what I was talking about.
My questions are:
Could a bacterial infection cause the cataract looking thing over her left eye? What would happen to that when she grows? Would it grow with the eye or just remain a small hazy spot?
What if it’s herpes? Does it sound like herpes? Will she need to be separated from other cats her whole life? We have three other cats in the house right now (she’s in a separate room).
The Ivermectin injected at the base clinic. WTF? Have you ever heard of this? (This has nothing to do with Bean, just curious.)
If it is feline herpes, no, she won’t need to be separated from other cats her whole life. Acute flare ups of her eye (or maybe respiratory) infections may occur (usually stress related), and intermittent shedding will also happen, but she would be OK otherwise. Same thing if the other cats get herpes from her.
Your third point was about injecting ivermectin… Yea, ivermectin can be injected subcutaneously (not usually done in companion animals, but I’ve done it in research rabbits). Like a prof. said… that is the beauty of ivermectin, no matter how you give it, it is absorbed…
Now, if they were using the same product here (cattle ivermectin, 1%, or 10mg/mL of ivermectin)… 2ccs is then 20mg of ivermectin… yup, that’s too high a dose. Ivermectin has a high safety margin, but that’s reported to 750mcg (or .75mg!!) in adult cats. And yes, the side effects include neurologic problems.
First of all, I am not a vet. But we’ve rescued 2 different kittens with eye problems that sound similar to your description. The first one is now gone to the happy (mouse) hunting grounds after a long and mostly happy life. But he had an eye infection when we rescued him. Our vet treated that and his various other parasites & infections but did not know what to do about the cloudy eye, which continued to have occasional goopiness. We took him to an animal opthalmologist, which I had never known existed before. He took one look and said it was simply cloudy scar-type tissue as a result of the now-cleared infection, as well as possibly an obstructed tear duct. He said it was operable, but unnecessary unless it bothered US a lot, since it was very expensive. He said it most likely didn’t bother the cat at all, any more than a smudge on one’s glasses.
The second one we just recently rescued from the street. She also had the crusted-up eyes, which were treated with antibiotics. When the infection cleared she still has one eye rather cloudy. The vet says this is a herpes infection, and that there is no need to worry about ourselves, the dog or the other 2 cats. She also suggested lysine, which we put in the new kitten’s food.
Here she is a few days after her rescue, just 2 months ago. The affected eye is the one closest to the camera; you can sort of see the cloudiness.
So if it is herpes the other cats can get it from her? All the time or just with flare-ups? Because they’re foster cats, and it will be much more difficult to get them adopted if they have herpes. Could a bacterial infection theoretically cause the eye haze?
2ccs of 1% ivermectin is definitely a high dose, though some people dilute that with oils.
It will be intermittent shedding, just like with other types of herpes… The other cats can get it from her, but they may also not get it, or get it and develop milder initial symptoms than the kitten. Who knows, maybe the cats already do have it, but show no signs so that you don’t notice.
Eddles has feline herpes. I just realized last night that we’ve had him almost a year! Anyway, he’s lived with another cat for a year and Dewey, the other cat, has never gotten it. When he was little he had a pretty bad outbreak (when I first got him) but now he only gets weepy eyes every so very often - I just put some lysine powder in his food and he’s okay. Doesn’t seem to bother him any; otherwise, he’s a very healthy cat. (Except for his allergies that make his paw pads peel sometimes. But that’s evidently unrelated.)
General comment: I have seen many animals that have previously been treated on military bases. I have not been impressed with the quality of care in any of those cases.
I sometimes use Ivermectin to treat ear mites and intestinal parasites in cats that cannot be treated by more conventional methods. Using standard 1% injectable, my dose for an adult ten pound cat would be 0.1 cc. At that dose it is safe and efficacious.
As far as herpes in cats, current thinking is that all adult cats have been exposed at one time or another and are either infected or immune by adulthood. Bacterial infection usually occurs secondary to the initial damage the virus causes, so antibacterial therapy is typically helpful. Antivirals are sometimes used to shorten the course of infection, and the amino acid lysine helps decrease the frequency of outbreaks.
Cataracts, by definition involve the lens of the eye, whereas the opacities caused by herpes et al involve the cornea.
Thanks, vetbridge, that was really helpful. So if I’m understanding it right, most upper-respiratory issues with cats are related to the herpes virus(es), and the vaccines cats receive protect against this group of viruses (imperfectly, but it at least helps). Is that right?
I’m taking Bean back to the Japanese vet tomorrow (she’s been on antibiotics and eye drops ten days now) and if she’s clear than it should be OK to let her be around the other cats (older and vaccinated) right?
Well, herpes is very common, but recently there has been a “super virulent” strain of calici virusaround. One cat shelter I work with lost 90% of their kitten population last spring.
Has the kitten been tested for and determined to be feline leukemia negative? That would be my biggest concern (sorry if I missed mention of it). I have dealt with many situations where a FeLV positive cat is added to a household, eventually leading to decimation of the previously existing cat population.
Well, I just got back from the vet. She’s negative for FELV and FIV (yay!) but has coccidia, so the quarantine continues. Her eye has continued to improve since I posted this thread, but it’s still cloudy so he told me to continue the antibiotic drops twice a day and gave me more drops that I’m to use 5 times a day for 14 days (label is in Japanese, but you twist off the top of a new little dropper/cell-thing every day and discard at the end of the day, if that’s a clue). Also some stuff for the coccidia twice a day for 10 days. I made a chart. He says the eye will continue to improve over the next 2-3 weeks, so I’m hopeful. Said nothing about herpes.
