The vet confirmed today that the marks on our short haired cat are indeed ringworm. I have got shampoo to wash her twice a week and also some ointment to apply twice daily. The treatment lasts 4 weeks.
We have another long haired cat who has no signs of any ringworm. The vet says there are many sources of infection, the most likely being another cat. It’s a bit strange as the short haired (infected) cat rarely goes outside. The long haired cat does go outside but doesn’t venture outside the yard. I have never seen another cat in the yard.
After getting home I did some research on the Internet. One of the sites stated that some animals can actually transmit the disease but show no signs of infection.
My question- is this likely- i.e. that the long haired cat could be a carrier but have no signs. We have had him for about four months.
[DVM speaking]Yes, it is likely the other cat is the carrier. You could try to do some diagnostic tests to see if the cat is carrying the fungus.[/DVM speaking]
A website I’ve recommended other times in this board (and recommend again), is Veterinary Partner.
You’ve probably heard this from your vet, but be careful around the infected cat. Wash your hands after petting it. Ringworm can be transmitted from cats to humans, although it is more likely to occur in immunocompromised people than in healthy adults. And it also varies by strain… I worked a couple of years at a cat shelter where the kittens every year (due to stress) got ringworm. I played with them, took care of them, and NEVER got infected.
Fast forward to travelling to Brasil… I saw some cats at the school I was attending and played and petted them. I knew they had ringworm, but due to my previous experience, I thought I was resistant. Wrong! Got the infection a couple of days before leaving the country. Three spots, one in the inside of each forearm, and a third like an Indian dot on the forehead. As soon as I got back to the states I had to buy the antifungal version of Neosporin.
And you don’t build immunity against it, so it can happen again and again.
Yes- thanks. He did stress the need for ensuring cleanliness, which fortunately we always practise regardless but have today been washing cat blankets in strong bleach etc. The cats live in the same house but don’t tend to mix at all so I was a bit hopeful that the other was not the carrier.
That plus he is a 16 lb monster and the thought of washing him scares the life out of me.
Working at a shelter and fostering cats, I have had my share of ringworm experience.
I took in a pair of fabulously beautiful persians. No apparent lesions on them anywhere, both were healthy cats. Being persians, they were adopted out quickly. They had their own room while at my house, but it was adjacent a room with a mom and her litter. I did my best to wash my hands in between handling the two different rooms of cats, but never changed clothes or anything like that.
Well, about 5 days after the persians had gone, I notice a lesion on one of the kittens and on mom. Mom and kittens all had ringworm. Six weeks of bathing and medicating. All cleared up just fine, but it was a long six weeks. I made sure to bathe my resident cat at bi-weekly intervals as well just to make sure she didn’t get it.
I had to tell the new owner of the persians that they were exposed and the shelter offered to pay for a skin scraping. Turns out the male was a carrier. Thankfully, the new owner was very understanding and all ended up right with the world.
I have heard from lots of different people lots of different ways to treat it. Some bathe only and don’t bother to medicate. Some medicate only and don’t bother to bathe. Others do both, some use herbal treatments, etc. In every case, it takes the same amount of time to clear up.
What tends to confuse me about the big cat being the carrier is the amount of time that the smaller cat has taken to become infected. I said above that he had been here for three months, but it is in fact five months. I would have thought the smaller cat would have been infected well before this.
Even if the big cat is the carrier- how do we prove this? And how do we treat this? After we found him (he had been abandoned) he had been fully shaved at the vet and no lesions showed up. (Noting that lesions don’t have to appear).
Search in the link I provided, they talk about doing fungal cultures in the hair of the carrier cat to see if it is indeed the carrier.
Is the younger kitten stressed? Anything else OK with it? Not to mention fungal infections take longer to be noticed and longer to treat than most bacterial infections. He may have become infected a lot earlier than what you noticed…
Karl- thanks. I appreciate the time you have taken. When I saw Your posts it was quite late at night my time and I have just got online today. I will check out the link today.
Just to clarify things, the infected cat, although small, is not a kitten. When I say small she is 7lb but is small compared to the other cat. She is actually a 14 year old Siamese and not stressed about anything. Except me bathing her.
