Hi! I adopted an FIV+ cat this past August. From reading online, I didn’t think they would get sick too much more often than FIV- cats. I decided to adopt knowing that some might be turned off by his FIV status and knowing that I am lucky to be able to afford vet bills.
BUT this is the third upper respiratory tract infection he has had in 5 months. Each time, it doesn’t seem to clear it on his own without antibiotics. I’m concerned he’ll end up with antibiotic resistance over time if I keep doing this.
The first illness, he was given both oral antibiotics and eye drops for 2 weeks. The second time (several months later) his eyes weren’t as bad and they gave me a supply of oral antibiotics only for 1 week (wish it could have been 2…didn’t realize they only gave me enough for one). It’s been a couple of months and he’s sick again. I’m gonna take him in a few days if this doesn’t start to clear again.
Some notes:
-He is an indoor only cat. I do not have other pets.
-He was swabbed for herpes one of the times and it was negative. One of the times he had a mycoplasma infection and the other time he was not swabbed.
-He was tested as FeLV- at the shelter. But I suppose if he had a very early infection, it might not have shown up.
-He mostly acts pretty normal during his infections thankfully (eating, using the bathroom, etc)…just maybe sometimes a tad less active.
-I’m going to start giving him lysine powder daily in his food (twice a day). The vet had me give it to him for the duration of the first infection, but I may as well just continue it forever since it seems fairly benign.
Thanks, guys!
So did his weepy eyes resolve on their own? Did he have any other symptoms along with it.
The first illness was a couple days after I brought him home from the shelter. both his eyes were watering like crazy and he was sneezing like mad, was also coughing rarely. I took him in pretty much right away. They said it’s very normal for shelter cats to get sick, but that he did have a bit of an unusual pathogen causing it (Mycoplasma).
The second time he had only one watery eye and was sneezing a bit but less so. Also coughing rarely. I tried to do a wait and see with this and was wondering if it was allergies, but it stayed the same for several weeks (no better but no worse), so he got antibiotics and it cleared up again.
This time he has two weepy eyes, but he actually hasn’t been sneezing much at all. He does cough rarely. I’m still doing a bit of a wait and see with the lysine this time before I bring him in.