Achoo! Cat with Allergies Advice Please!

sivyaleah

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Our younger girl, Luna, has been suffering from recurrent yeast infections in her ears since last July. She was 14 months old the first time it happened and is now 21 months old. We've had her treated several times to no avail, although since winter hit it hasn't been quite as bad - still gets dirty ears but no yeast for months.

Because of this we all suspected allergies as her worst symptoms coincided with a time of year that's high allergen. My vet recommended a specialist so we had a Zoom meeting with a highly regarded vet dermatologist which was very detailed (1-1/2 hours!) for a phone meeting. Due to Covid, she was coordinating with our regular vet who is not quite as well versed in allergies.

After trying some food changes which really didn't go well (I think I broke Luna because of it - she became really picky and I had to cajol her into eating at times) we moved onto doing blood testing since her office is pretty far from home and she felt that might give good results without having to make the ride and stressing Luna out (she's a terrible patient). Let alone, the other vet is basically working on her own right now because of Covid so doing the skin patch test would be a lot to deal with.

Anyway, got results yesterday of the bloodwork and wow, she's allergic to a lot of outdoor stuff, plus some indoor. Most of it was tree and other plant pollens, some molds, fleas and black ants (she has no fleas and we have no black ants LOL, but it was something to note) and low on the list human dander which I laughed at, since I'm allergic to her :)

My two choices right now are either allergy injections or a sub-lingual medication. I am torn between them because both have their pros and cons.

Injections:

A little less expensive

Gets it 3x a week for about 5 weeks, then down to 2x a week for several weeks and eventually once a week.

We'll have to bring her into the vet for those first weeks to ensure she has no reactions. Luna, is a delicate flower, had a bad reaction to her recent distemper vaccine (lethargic, no appetite, overly quiet for an entire week. When she got her rabies they gave her Benadryl first and she did fine but because of it already happening the potential is there for it.

She also is a terrible patient overall. Hates being messed with and has become fractious at the vet a couple of times. We have trouble at home with her too, though not to that degree so the thought of having to inject her at all is somewhat of a stress. Not that I can't do it - I can, we had a diabetic cat - just that she's so naturally thin and boney that I think she's really going to feel it no matter how hard we try for her not to.

I do like the fact that there's an eventual reduction of how many times this needs to be done in a week and there's always the possibility it could go as low as 2x a month or better yet, she'll not need them at some point at all. Will make our life easier if we ever want to go on vacation. Vet also said by the time we are even considering going away (pandemic) she'll be way past the more intense monthly schedules so going away for a week or so won't be an issue.

Sub-Linqual:
More expensive although this isn't an issue for us, thankfully.

Will not have to worry about reactions - it almost never happens.

Sounds more "doable" since it's only giving her a drop or 2 under her tongue each day and the bottle top is shaped like a small siphon so it probably would be over in a flash for her. But she may balk at the taste and eventually I can see her learning when we are about to give it to her and starting to get rambunctious. Did I mention she's a purebred Maine Coon? She is BIG adding to the hard to handle.

She can't eat for 1/2 hour before or after.

It has to be administered daily for like, forever. Quite concerned about what happens when we eventually go on vacation? Or if one of us isn't around for other reasons - really need 2 people for this due to her behavioral challenges. And again, like for her whole life. It seems like a huge commitment to make.

After chatting with the dermatologist too, I am somewhat leaning to the injections for the big reason that it will be less hands-on for us in the long run. I will have to bring Luna to her just once so that she can ethically say she did indeed see the cat and examine her other than me holding her up on that Zoom meeting
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We already have 2 extremely good air purifiers in the house, so who knows it could even be worse if we didn't have them. I try to wipe her down every day or so (if she allows me LOL) to get dust off her. I'm considering taking her to a groomer and see how that goes also. I also really need to hire a cleaning crew bt am still a bit scared to have people in my house but as we are getting older with bad knees, shoulders and all else, we are just not capable of deep cleaning our home any longer other than the usual daily upkeep. I bet this would help all of us so I may have to bite the bullet on that one.

Anyway curious if anyone is currently treating their furbaby for allergies and what you are using/managing. Please only people that use medication. I am NOT interested in holistic methods.

Thanks!
 

mrsgreenjeens

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I am not giving any of my cats allergy meds, but would like to ask a question and give a couple of comments anyway. Are the injections into the scruff or into muscle? If you gave your diabetic cats insulin shots, I'm guessing that was into the scruff, which they barely feel, if at all. If that's the case with the allergy shot, I'd opt for that, personally. We had to give one of our kidney cats injections in her scruff, and we did it while she was in the midst of her lovin' sessions and she never knew it happened. Hubby would give her lovin' and I would get the shot ready and hand it to him when appropriate and in it would go, then he's hand it to me again for capping and disposal. Worked like a charm! Now if there are in the muscle, that might be a different story, but perhaps (since really we are talking short term vs a lifetime) you could hire someone to do it for you. We have also done that before when necessary. We just called around to Vet offices near us and asked if anyone wanted to earn some extra money and explained what we needed. We found someone who lived within a block of us and it worked out great. With Covid, just require a mask, etc.

With another of our cats we needed to give him something sublinqual for just a couple days and it was a nightmare. I can't imagine having that fight on my hands every day for his lifetime.

So, are they any long lasting ill effects from either medication that you need to take into consideration?
 
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sivyaleah

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thanks mrsgreenjeens mrsgreenjeens
Yes, it's given just like an insulin injection in the scruff, which sadly I'm a pro at. My husband can do it also though really prefers not to. Plus since I'll have to bring her to the vet to be watched for reactions for the first month or so, pretty sure it's them that will administer it anyway.

Having to go the vet 3x a week is no mystery to us either. Our prior cat had kidney disease after he went into remission from the diabetes and we personally didn't want to be the ones doing SubQ on him. That, was a bit too much to handle for my husband and no way would I have been able to do it myself. So we'd schlep to the vet 2-3 times a week for them to do it.

They aren't far away but also are not near either and Luna does not travel as well as Casper did but is getting somewhat better after I started putting a dark cloth over the carrier. We also now give her gabapentin when they may need to do something more invasive.

I do think we can handle it. She loves being scritched on her head so if my husband does that while I sneak the other way and give her the injection, pretty sure it won't go as bad as we think it might.

There are no long last effects from immunotherapy. It's the same type they use for humans. It's not a medication - it's small amounts of each allergen suspended in liquid. It works like a vaccine causing the body to build up immunity or tolerance to the allergens. Eventually, you taper off so in a few months it would only be once a week, if that.

Hopefully this will put an end to the yeast infections, the scratching (thankfully she hasn't pulled out or lost fur so far) and some sneezing at times (rarely). Sometimes I wonder if her over the top reactions and dislike of being groomed are because of real discomfort, not from her basic personality.
 
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