hey all sorry for the long post ahead, im drowning in this situation and i feel so defeated and scared for my baby at this point.
my 6 month old phoebe has been battling this mysterious reaction for almost 3 months now, i have other threads where i go into more detail but i'll debrief a bit here for ease of understanding.
she has always had some sneezing, but she also squints so my first vet diagnosed FHV and gave me lysine for her, which she gets twice a day. in november, she randomly presented hyperesthesia like symptoms one night- itching and biting herself all over, chasing her wagging tail, agression and paranoid behavior. it went on like this for days, until they randomly just kind of... stopped. this has happened multiple times, she'll get crazy and itchy for like a full day with no relief, and it'll slowly taper off until shes fine again. over time she started chewing and flicking her feet as well. every vet ive seen (3-4 at this point) has said the same thing. suspected flea or food allergy to chicken or poultry.
fleas have been totally ruled out, i did a flea bath and combed and saw nothing and no vet has ever seen any (plus they get revolution plus every month). so i turned to food. the trials have been incredibly difficult because not only is finding chicken free/food not contaminated by chicken with same line use difficult all on its own, but they are they still babies so their food options aren't really the most abundant. we did try a hydrolized diet, but she refused to touch it. safe to say ive been trying the best i can.
i went to a new vet who gave her convenia and and vetalog for the itching and the sneezing (we started the hydrolized this day too). she did okay the first time, she was maybe a little lethargic and had little appetite but i dont really remember anything serious happening. however the sneezing and itching virtually stopped after day one. i almost forgot she even had this problem i was so relieved. until about a week ago when the injections wore off. back to square one- itching and sneezing so aggressively, and i couldnt do anything to help because i still dont really know what to do.
so i call the vet, and we get in two days ago for another appointment. he says the same thing- still thinks its a food allergy. he suggested food testing again, and just to keep her from getting these flare ups and because it seemed to work last time, he gave her another round of both injections and sent me home prednisolone. i havent given the prednisolone yet because to me, it seems counterproductive to give steriods while food testing if the steroids are supposed to relieve the allergy symptoms anyway.
but over the last two days she's been lethargic which i guess is to be expected, and hiding a bit (she is currently snuggling on me so shes not too done with interaction at least) in my bedroom. her appetite has basically been non existent again, but worse than before. i had to feed her out of my hand last night just so she would eat. as im writing this, im realizing she might not have eaten the hydrolyzed food because of her first injection too (she didnt even really eat her normal food for a couple days after i stopped the hydrolyzed) though im not totally sure. even worse, shes still itching all over so i fear this injection was all for nothing.
i started looking online and safe to say im anxious as all hell... i didn't know convenia was such a toxic medication, and shes had it twice! and shes only SIX MONTHS! im getting deeply afraid ive made a mistake here letting this vet talk me into these injections, and ive just read so many horror stories of beloved pets dying from this.
i got the dr.mercola's and its coming on monday, but god does anyone know what else i can do in the meantime/at the same time to help? after all we've been through, i cannot lose her to my own stupidity. she's such a sweet and loving girl, i would never forgive myself. if anyone can help, please do.
my 6 month old phoebe has been battling this mysterious reaction for almost 3 months now, i have other threads where i go into more detail but i'll debrief a bit here for ease of understanding.
she has always had some sneezing, but she also squints so my first vet diagnosed FHV and gave me lysine for her, which she gets twice a day. in november, she randomly presented hyperesthesia like symptoms one night- itching and biting herself all over, chasing her wagging tail, agression and paranoid behavior. it went on like this for days, until they randomly just kind of... stopped. this has happened multiple times, she'll get crazy and itchy for like a full day with no relief, and it'll slowly taper off until shes fine again. over time she started chewing and flicking her feet as well. every vet ive seen (3-4 at this point) has said the same thing. suspected flea or food allergy to chicken or poultry.
fleas have been totally ruled out, i did a flea bath and combed and saw nothing and no vet has ever seen any (plus they get revolution plus every month). so i turned to food. the trials have been incredibly difficult because not only is finding chicken free/food not contaminated by chicken with same line use difficult all on its own, but they are they still babies so their food options aren't really the most abundant. we did try a hydrolized diet, but she refused to touch it. safe to say ive been trying the best i can.
i went to a new vet who gave her convenia and and vetalog for the itching and the sneezing (we started the hydrolized this day too). she did okay the first time, she was maybe a little lethargic and had little appetite but i dont really remember anything serious happening. however the sneezing and itching virtually stopped after day one. i almost forgot she even had this problem i was so relieved. until about a week ago when the injections wore off. back to square one- itching and sneezing so aggressively, and i couldnt do anything to help because i still dont really know what to do.
so i call the vet, and we get in two days ago for another appointment. he says the same thing- still thinks its a food allergy. he suggested food testing again, and just to keep her from getting these flare ups and because it seemed to work last time, he gave her another round of both injections and sent me home prednisolone. i havent given the prednisolone yet because to me, it seems counterproductive to give steriods while food testing if the steroids are supposed to relieve the allergy symptoms anyway.
but over the last two days she's been lethargic which i guess is to be expected, and hiding a bit (she is currently snuggling on me so shes not too done with interaction at least) in my bedroom. her appetite has basically been non existent again, but worse than before. i had to feed her out of my hand last night just so she would eat. as im writing this, im realizing she might not have eaten the hydrolyzed food because of her first injection too (she didnt even really eat her normal food for a couple days after i stopped the hydrolyzed) though im not totally sure. even worse, shes still itching all over so i fear this injection was all for nothing.
i started looking online and safe to say im anxious as all hell... i didn't know convenia was such a toxic medication, and shes had it twice! and shes only SIX MONTHS! im getting deeply afraid ive made a mistake here letting this vet talk me into these injections, and ive just read so many horror stories of beloved pets dying from this.
i got the dr.mercola's and its coming on monday, but god does anyone know what else i can do in the meantime/at the same time to help? after all we've been through, i cannot lose her to my own stupidity. she's such a sweet and loving girl, i would never forgive myself. if anyone can help, please do.
she's already seen four different vets at this point, but i can try to look for another. i live in a smaller town so i dont know many options i have sadly
i will keep looking at all life stages food, maybe im just not seeing all the options??
I definitely treat them with kid gloves sometimes, I'll admit I can be a bit of an overworrier (it definitely shows in my original posts lol) but I can definitely start the prednisolone tomorrow! Thinking long term as well, food testing has been pretty costly and I can't necessarily afford it at the moment, so it's been making the stress of the situation much worse. It might just be for the best if I put it off for a while until I can get on my feet. Thank you for your response, I appreciate it!
! And I was working with four cat at the time, aged 1 - 13. But we did it and then started with the raw food. At first they had no clue what the raw food was, so I had to take it and make little tiny meatballs out of it and roll each one in crushed freeze dried meat. For instance, I think I started out with turkey, so I used freeze dried turkey as my topper to cover each little meatball. Finally I got to the point where I could just sprinkle the bowl of food with the topper. Then I moved on to other proteins. I finally decided why not make my own, using a premix? That way I still didn't have to worry about whether or not I was missing any nutrients, although there are plenty of recipes out there that tell you exactly how to prepare a batch of food. I just didn't trust myself. And now, as I probably mentioned, I just feed freeze dried raw because only one cat eats it as it is supposed to be served, which is rehydrated in warm water. But my other cat does eat it in the dehydrated form as treats, so if your cats are free fed now, they could actually eat it that way. But it's pricey. (the freeze dried) The good thing about raw is that for allergic cats it's supposed to be very helpful. If you decide to go this route, I would suggest rabbit. Stella and Chewy make freeze dried rabbit, and then you could find a different brand of frozen or continue with S and C. There are several brands that make frozen rabbit, just make sure it's 100% nutritionally complete, not just the meat, organs and bones ground up. Brands like Instinct, Vital Essentials are going to be nutritionally complete. And don't be thrown off by the fact there are fruits and vegies in the raw...it replicates what would be in the stomachs of what they would be eating if it was still alive 
