6 Things I Learned from Our Ringworm Plague (book length....)

[mamakitty1986]

Thank you for the info. I actually did read that link, but was still obsessing about touching anything and thinking we are carrying the plague. I wish I didn't have the carpet, but I have purchased some accel and will test it for colorfastness tonight.
Truly thank you for the info. I'm a high-anxiety person in general so this is really taxing to me. All advice is appreciated!

 

[mamakitty1986]

I bought some lime plus dip and dipped my two boys at home last night. The bottle says they have to wear an e collar but I thought I saw on here somewhere but they don't is that true? I don't see that thread presently. Will it hurt them to not put a collar on them since they're adults? I will put one on the kittens if needed.

 

[bunnelina]

Hi I wish some others would chime in here! Then you would see that most of us freaked out to some extent over ringworm and often A LOT!  

I was a complete wreck until some people here helped me settle down and make a plan.  Some people throw out most of their possessions, some contemplate getting rid of the cats. Me, I just wanted to burn the place down and start over.

Use your excess nervous energy to clean! I HATE to clean but I sure had the energy to do it when I was anxious and scared.... and it proved to be a wonderful distraction.

I don't think cats need to wear an e-collar unless they are licking the wet dip off their fur to the point where they could get sick. Mine didn't do that.  

A key thing to remember, to guide your thinking, is that these poor cats (and dogs) don't need added stress on top of quarantine and treatments. Stress affects the immune system; a strong immune system helps to defeat the ringworm. So try to do whatever you can to keep them happy and calm and feeling safe. E-collars don't do that.

PS: Please make sure that any cleaning agents and chemicals that you use around your cats are very safe for them. I don't know about Accel.

 

[mamakitty1986]

Hello!
Accel is made for vet use. It says it is safe. I'm sorry everybody else freaked out but it makes me feel not so bad that I did too. I am cleaning cleaning as much as I can but fighting it on two fronts and working a 12-hour day 5 days a week wears one out.
Thanks for your advice I really appreciate it

 

[mamakitty1986]

Does anyone have an opinion? My HEPA vacuum I've been waiting for in the mail came with no battery. I have the choice of a regular Shop-Vac with no HEPA filter or a broom to clean a kitten room tonight

 

[bunnelina]

Broom.  The shop vac will just blow the spores out from its exhaust so it doesn't really help. If it's easy to rinse and clean the broom, you could use that. 

Or you could take the night off! You have to take extra good care of yourself right now, too!

 

[mamakitty1986]

The kittens at work have been on their medicine for 4 weeks now, but I see one of them has new leaions, uhgghhh. I never realized how unfinished my work bathroom is until I started trying to clean and sanitize itv aily. The other 2 seem ok so far but all 3 are getting lime sulphur baths. The adult cats at work are also almost at 4 weeks but have never showed signs of ringworm. At home, my 2 boys are still sequestered, on They're also on their 4th week of meds and aren't showing anything new.
That being said, I do a good job keeping the kittens room at work clean and the rest of the shop cleaned. But it leaves me no time to clean at home. I keep the boys room they're sequestered in cleaned out but between work and cleaning both places, I'm already working 17-19 hours a day. I just don't have any time to clean up my house outside of the room the house cats are sequestered in. so frustrated

 

[mamakitty1986]

Question: can anyone tell me how long after your cat or kitten is declared free of ringworm you need to keep super cleaning

 

[blacksakura6]

I can not speak for others but I continued to clean like mad for a month afterwards.  Now I have calmed down a lot.  I still use my Swiffer daily now that I am aware of how much build up actually happens in the home, but I only vacuum once a week and mop once or twice a week.  I still have not reached "hair tumbleweed" stage yet but the insane, constant Accel disinfecting of everything is no longer happening.  (Love the product and so glad that I was introduced to it! )  Just routine cleaning.  So far so good.  

But I admit that I am still panicked about seeing a lesion pop out despite the fact that they both tested negative twice... Always wondering if I got the spore count down low enough so they won't get reinfected....I think it will take some time for me to feel completely comfortable again!  

 

[alh071]

I am so happy to report that Sheldon doesn't have ringworm. The test the vet used is a new 4 day one -- he gave me the info and I googled it so I feel secure in trusting it. They believe the spot on his foot is a scar. He is settling in nicely with my other cats and gets along fantastically with my
Dog.

 

[bunnelina]

I stopped the minute we got the third negative culture! I am sorry to say that my housekeeping has deteriorated sadly since those days. I was burned out and I guess I am still in recovery six years later. 

 

[mamakitty1986]

Were those 10 day cultures? My vet tested one of my boys with a new test that uses heat and chemicals it eats away the hair but leaves anything that's not hair, like spores. She said he's free of it, but I'm wondering if I need to have him tested again and if so when

 

[bunnelina]

Gee, I'm not sure what your vet was using.

Back when my cats had ringworm, the gold standard for diagnosis was the fungal culture, taken by collecting fur from all over the cat using a sterile toothbrush. We had to wait up to three weeks per culture (a positive result could happen faster but they waited a long to be sure no ringworm was growing).We had to keep treating until we had three negatives. One of our last cultures had something unidentifiable growing in it for one cat, which they thought might be ringworm, so they let it grow for another two to three weeks, which was agony since we were longing to get back to our lives — we were still cleaning, laundering, and treating the cats, plus we had no curtains, or rugs, or decent bedding, lots of our stuff was packed away for easier cleanin. We were wearing the same old clothes all the time so I could toast them in our hot dryer....  those were so NOT "the good old days."

Now the gold standard is the PCR test, which takes 1 to 3 days but does not involve heat or chemicals as far as I know, but molecular testing. You can read about it here. I hope this is what your vet has been using! 

 

[mamakitty1986]

That is good information, thank you. The kittens have another vet appointment Thursday, I will ask about this.

 

[fosterajumma]

Hi mamakitty! Did your vet get the cultures back? I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, for some reason I stopped getting email notifications on this thread. It seems like bunnelina and others have answered your questions already, but I just wanted to give you my sympathies about rogue lesions showing up after cats have been on orals! It's a total pain in the ass, so discouraging, and ramps up the anxiety unbelievably. I'll be interested to hear what the results of the cultures are--I wonder if those lesions started from infections predating the start of the oral meds. Maybe the orals have made the fungus on that lesion less potent, resulting in fewer spores? One can hope!

I've had ringworm twice now, with two different litters of foster kittens. I never got the room culture-tested, so I don't know if the second litter picked up spores from there despite my best efforts (I had at least one litter between the two, and had let my older fosters and my own cats in and out of that room and no one ever showed clinical signs of infection), or if they both just had it. Anyway, like others have mentioned, I've kept up some aspects of the intensive cleaning, and let others fall by the wayside.

I will say, I bought a fancy vacuum at the start of my first bout with ringworm, exhaustively cleaned the front of the house with it once to remove any rogue spores I'd carried out of the foster room, and have exclusively used it for my fosters since. Had to buy another cheaper vacuum for the front of the house. I just can't bring myself to trust the vacuum yet, ha. After the first litter I told myself I'd give it two years (the max time spores are supposed to live in the environment) and then free the vacuum, but I've had to reset that clock now. I should make a "it's been __ days since our last ringworm infestation" calendar.

I realize this is total arbitrary paranoia on my part--I've reused bedding and towels that were exposed to ringworm after a thorough washing and those seem just as/more likely to still retain spores, but that's just where my anxiety has drawn the line. It's too bad; it's a really nice vacuum! 

 

[maffy118]

I'm so happy to have found this thread. I, myself, got m. canus two years ago after volunteering at a shelter. The left side of my scalp went completely bald. I recovered, but I suspect I will always have a fungal vulnerability.

Last year I adopted a cat from a couple, so she lived in that home for two years before coming to me, but when she accidentally scratched my scalp one day while playing, she activated my fungal infection again, although it wasn't nearly as bad as two years ago. ( I've read where cats can be carriers of ringworm without having an active infection.) Unfortunately, I ended up giving her an active case of ringworm on her ears, and the miconazole cream did nothing. But three weeks on oral Lamisil seems to have done the trick.

I just pulverize the pill with a spoon and add a little baby food to make a paste. I then smear it on her lips and paws...much easier way to give a pill!

Also, anytime I touch her, I do a quick squirt with hand sanitizer and tell guests to do the same. I learned that at the shelter, even tho I still got it. ( mind you, I'm on an immunosuppressant drug, so that didn't help.)

I clean as much as I can, but the whole thing is tough. I make sure Olive and I eat healthy diets and supplements to support our own bodies fighting this mini mighty beast.

 

[mamakitty1986]

Hello everyone. I got the cultures back from my two house cats Davie and Tula.
Davie is negative but Tula is positive. Plus while he was on the last round of oral medicine he had a very high fever that he had to stay in the hospital for 3 days that they couldn't explain. Now my vet wants to test him for some kind of immune deficiency like leukemia to see if that's why he's still showing positive. I also have 5 cats that live at my shop. none of them have ever shown lesions and have been on oral medicine for 6 weeks daily then a week of weekly doses. Everyone seemed fine until today I found a spot that suspicious on one of their ears. now I'm totally freaking out. I have cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and even had a friend help me clean. I've spent just about every dime I have on this I don't know what I'm going to do.
Fostajumma, I bought the best vacuum I could afford. Actually I bought 2 one for the room at home where the cats are confined and one for the rest of the house because I myself couldn't find a way to trust that it was okay to take it and the rest of my house even after I cleaned it

 

[maffy118]

Tip about pilling: pulverize the pill with the back of a spoon into a fine powder, then mix it with a tiny amount of Gerber cicken and gravy baby food. Make it into a paste consistency, then rub it along the side of your cat's lips. If there's any left over, wipe it on her paw and she'll lick it when she bathes.

I read an earlier post here whose kitten was put down because of an esophagus condition it developed from pilling. Hopefully this technique can help others who have to pill. My Olive was on terbanafine for three weeks and we got through it. She also needs Mirtazapine every four days due to hypercalcemia, so I had to come up with a way of pilling that wouldn't kill us both with stress.

I got ringworm in my scalp from her, so this has been quite an ordeal. ( It's just the two of us in a small apt.) We both recently got a clean bill of health, but I'm still diligent about cleaning.

I never got too upset about it all tho. I've had a lot of health issues and have learned to roll with the punches. That said,i can certainly understand the frenzy of those with a lot of pets.

 

[mamakitty1986]

Keeping an eye on my 5 work cats still.
I freaked out about all of it and still do sometimes.

 

[graywing]

Does anyone know if I have to worry at all about fumes from Accel harming either me or a kitten?  Or is it completely safe regarding breathing?  I just wouldn't want a cat to be exposed directly to it while cleaning, correct?