Cat with herpes, bad breath

molldee

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My cat Bowie has feline herpes. I give him L-Lysine 500 mg twice a day with his wet food. He only eats canned food. The problem is his breath stinks. His gums are pink (normal pink) and there's nothing odd looking with his teeth. If I touch a tooth, he doesn't squirm away. I'm thinking maybe his breath stinks because he sometimes breathes through his mouth. Besides having herpes, his nose is "deviated" and it gets stuffy really quickly. The L-Lysine has helped tremedously, but he still sometimes breathes from his mouth. Could his stinky breath be because of his mouth breathing? I've read somewhere that breathing through your mouth makes your breath stinky because of the amount of bacteria or something?

I just started using pet dental wipes and will see if that helps.
 
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stephenq

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When an animal develops bad breath one has to at least medically suspect an underlying illness of some sort.  Even some deeply internal illnesses like kidney failure can cause bad breath. I'm not suggesting that this is your cat's issue, but it is totally worth a vet visit. Please make an appointment with your vet.
 

nbrazil

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What constitutes bad breath with a cat? I mean the canned food doesn't necessarily smell great. I ask because both cats in my mini clowder have strong, sort of fishy breath, but they seem otherwise fine.
 
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molldee

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I already have a visit coming up so I'll let them know then. I was just wondering if breathing with the mouth open could also cause bad breath. He's always had bad breath, and when he was at the vet a year ago they didn't see anything wrong.
 
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molldee

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Yeah, my cat's breath smells like funky canned food left out for too long or something... not fishy though or horrific. But my other two cats who don't have herpes are fine. Their breath just smells like canned food. That's why I was wondering if mouth breathing makes the breath stinky.
 
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stephenq

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After a meal a cat will smell like it's good but other than that it's breath should be fine. If her breath smells bad to you then that constitutes bad breath.
 
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molldee

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Yes, I understand, but I was just wondering if breathing through your mouth could make breath stinky too. I'm not ignoring that he may have a medical issue or needs his teeth cleaned, I was just curious.
 

stephenq

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Ah got it.  Not that I'm aware of but I don't really know to be honest. Ive been around a lot of congested cats (many, likes hundreds over time) and I haven't noticed bad breath.  How close do you have to get to him to notice and how bad is it?
 

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Definitely 2nd the vet visit, there are a lot of different things that can cause bad breath.  No I don't think that breathing through the mouth is one of them however.
 
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molldee

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He tends to love sleeping on my head and shoulders at night, so that's when I notice it. He breathes right into my face. It smells enough to say "bad" but it doesn't knock me over. I am going to bring this up at my vet visit in about a week. I read somewhere that for people, if you breathe with your mouth open bacteria collects faster (or something like that) and makes your breath stink. I thought maybe that applied to cats too? Maybe not? I'll definitely get it checked out though. Thanks everyone!
 
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