My little, 2 month old kitten has been sneezing all day! Runny eyes- the works.
Send me some “my kitty was sick but got better” stories, please 
I got Miss Penelope from Animal Control. She came with an upper respiritory infection, and a double eye infection. One dose of antibiotics got rid of the URI, but she needed two go-rounds of eyedrops for her eyes.
So go get her some antibiotics.
Sounds like our little kitty from two years ago. She got better, so much better that she’s now fat cat number two in our house, but it took a trip to the vet plus some meds to get to this happy ending. I think you’ll probably find a trip to the vet will be the best answer. Good luck.
How about a ‘take your kitty to the vet and it should get better’ story?
I can give you plenty of those.
I had rescued a kitty from the animal shelter once. When I took her to the vet, the vet told me to take her back because she had pneumonia and probably wouldn’t survive. She was a gorgeous black and white long hair kitten of about 3 months old.
I didn’t take her back. Instead the vet gave me a ton of medication to give her every few hours and I would sit in the bathroom floor with her while the shower steamed up the room. She did survive the ordeal I had her for about 10 years after that.
Sneezing cats have never been good news; if they’re sneezing, they’re REALLY sick, in my experience.
Get that kitten to the vet asap.
My kitten got Feline Herpes from the animal shelter, and came home sneezing. Even though we kept it in quarantine for 6 weeks the virus passed on to our older cat.
Both now have 1-2 spells a year with sneezing fits (usually 6-12 in a row, rapid fire), slightly runny eyes, slight inflamation of the membrane(?) around the eyes. These spells last for about a week, and then the virus seems to go into remission until the next spell.
Good luck to you and your kitten!
Upper Respiratory Infections are pretty common, especially in kittens. There are several possible causes; FVR - Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis, Calicivirus, Chlamydia and possibly some other viruses as yet unidentified. Chlamydia is a rickettsia and is very susceptible to certain antibiotics, it can also be zoonotic (contagious to people - pinkeye). So definitely wash your hands after handling the kittens just in case.
The first two virii are covered in the yearly vaccines. FVR is the most common and it is a herpes virus (not contagious to people), they usually will carry the virus for life and can outbreaks off an on throughout their life or be carriers and infect other cats. FVR can also cause mouth and eye ulcers and can get pretty nasty. The viral URI’s pretty much have to run their course but we always put them on antbiotics and maybe eye meds to protect from secondary bacterial infections and prevent eye ulcers. Antibiotics do seem to help even though these are mostly viral infections. If left to run their course without meds they can develop severe high fevers, dehydrate and can also end up with pnemonia so you really need to take the kitten to a vet. They can die from URI’s. Do not use any OTC human meds, cats cannot tolerate things like tylenol, aspirin and advil - it will kill them.
I have a kitten with FVR, she gets better then starts sneezing again. There has been a lot of success with keeping these cats on a lysine supplement. I have tried crushing lysine tablets and mixing with a flavored syrup we use for compounding but she’s not crazy about it. If I can get some in her for a couple days straight she improves greatly. I recently ordered a lysine paste formulated for cats, called Enisyl-F, so I am hoping this will be easier to administer to the little monkey.
So definitely go to your vet and if she/he says they think it’s FVR-herpes, ask about a lysine supplement.
I wanted to add that there is also a vaccine for Chlamydia but you usually need to ask for it.
Also, I have 9 cats, none of my others are sneezing except for the oldest and he always sneezes off and on anyway. Although he’s been pretty healthy all his life he probably picked up the herpes virus at some point.
Anon. Coward - If you can handle giving your cats daily meds you may want to look into the lysine supplements, too. A co-worker who works at a shelter that sees lots of URI kittens swears by it, she calls it a miracle. Since it’s a natural supplement it’s pretty safe, the hard part is getting it in the cat, but it can always be added to food.
Can we get safe lysine supplements without going through a vet? Our vet charges outrageous markups on common drugs and supplements.
I’m leery of actually giving medication dosages online, however the information is all over the net. But it’s a safe supplement and not actually medication and has a wide range of safety. You could always try calling your vet and ask, some will tell you what you can give without insisting you come in to them.
I’ve been using just a human L-lysine supplement, 500mg, and crushing it and mixing it with a flavored syrup we use for compounding oral meds. The doses I’ve seen are 250mg to 500mg per day. I give about 250mg a day because she’s still small (if I can get it in her). Some people mix it in food, I just have problems with that method since I have 9 cats and they tend to shift around and I;d rather not have to dose all of them. The kitten also hates to be separated to be fed and will not eat until I let her back with the others. It also makes it difficult to get her to eat her kitten food. I am hoping that the lysine paste I ordered will be tasty enough that medicating her won’t be so difficult.
Yes, even those of us who do this for a living have a hard time treating our own pets.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll look into it today.
I wish I had 9 kitties to play with. You’re a lucky person!
Lucky? Most people think that’s insane. 
Basically, I’m just a sucker for kittens. Curse their cuteness!