Can I get my cat spayed and vaccinated while she has an active outbreak of herpes

sylvie000

TCS Member
Thread starter
Young Cat
Joined
Sep 15, 2022
Messages
39
Purraise
53
My cat has herpes. Her eye is constantly runny. She is almost a year old and it has been runny nonstop for probably 6 months already. She's been getting lysine treats for about two months now, but it didnt seem to help much so I got a powder and have been mixing in a higher dose into her food for about a week now. I heard that it can take up to three months to see any results from lysine so I'm still hopeful it will help. Either way, I'm probably gonna give her lysine supplements daily for the rest of her life, unless that isn't safe to do.

But anyways, I need to get her spayed and she needs to get her rabies vaccine and I'm wondering if I can do those things while she has an active outbreak of herpes. I just don't know if her eye will ever stop being runny, so I don't know if I can just sit around and wait and risk her getting pregnant.

I forgot to ask my vet, and I can't just call them to ask because it's a large clinic and they aren't allowed to give medical advise over the phone since it isn't the actual vet speaking on the phone. She is vaccinated for the core vaccines, except for rabies, but she got vaccinated after she initially got herpes (my fault for waiting due to misinformation from friends and family and her being my first cat ever). Originally, she got herpes, had a runny eye for a few weeks, got better, then got vaccinated, and then her eye got runny immediately after and never stopped since then.

So I'm wondering if it is safe for her to get spayed and get her rabies shot while she actively has a runny eye due to herpes.
 

Gary O

Mad Cats
Young Cat
Joined
Sep 27, 2022
Messages
56
Purraise
70
Location
Essex UK
You really need to ask a vet, if you can't talk to them about this I should find somewhere else; that's really bad. My little girl had a bad diarrhoea problem lasted a couple of months just at the time when she needed to be spayed. I got an immediate response from the vet that it would have to wait, she went into heat and it was awful but thankfully her stomach got better and she got done. I've got the feeling that a herpes infection on the face would not hamper the surgery, but only the vet that will be doing the op can say.
 

fionasmom

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Joined
Jun 21, 2014
Messages
13,125
Purraise
17,371
Location
Los Angeles
I am going to agree that only your vet can make the determination.

To be honest, you are not asking for real medical advice over the phone. You are not asking for a diagnosis or a prescription without bringing the cat in. You only want to know what you posted here which is can your cat be spayed during an active outbreak of herpes.

While this is hard to treat, and often treated only symptomatically, has famciclovir or another medication even been used to help her?

Herpesvirus Infection in Cats (Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis) | VCA Animal Hospital
 
Top