Ringworm Lime Sulphur Hair Loss Oh My

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Hi, I’m new but been reading here for a while.
So long story short, we had three senior-ish cats we’ve had since kittens. We lost my 18 year old boy to a long battle with cancer earlier last year and decided we thought we were ready for some new kitten energy. We adopted a kitten in October. Everyone was getting along great but he was a super rambunctious bounce off the walls boy, so we decided to get him a little friend. We of course came home with two more kittens from the same rescue because that’s what you do.
That was earlier December. Our Christmas present was realizing that one of them must have brought ringworm into our house. Of course this happened over the holidays so it took forever to get the PCR back and get meds. And we spend New Years and our anniversary freaking out and yelling at each other and cleaning the house floor to ceiling and back again. We have never in 13 years of marriage fought as much as we have this last 3 weeks.
first it was just our little October baby Ralph with a lesion on his nose cheek and foot, then Peggy on her ear- one of the seniors (she’s 12), then Névé one of the new kittens got three spots on her back. This was over the course of three days. The rescues finally gave us some lime sulphur dip so we spent the night sobbing in the kitchen about my poor pass one boy and freaking out about getting it in one of our cats eyes and on the phone with an emergency vet all night.
we tried to put the three with lesions in my office and leave the three without out. But they screamed all night and we let them out then tried to just give them the house and sealed ourselves in our room. But after our vet and some vet that works with the rescue telling us we now need to burn our house down, we packed up the entire office and put all in ther with some empty book shelves and recleaned and disinfected every square inch of the rest of the house. We only have a 2 bedroom 2 bath and our bathrooms are tiny and don’t have windows. The rest of thevhouse is big open concept with a patio that runs the length of the house and about 700sqft which did belong to the cats until this. So we don’t have anywhere to quarantine them except in this one bedroom together. And they are miserable. Our three seniors were still getting use to new cats in the house and now this.
Then somewhere in the time when we were packing up my office for them Coffee, another senior at 13 got a little lesion on her ear. So that’s 4 out of 6 now.
We continued with the line sulphur as we waited to get meds. Ultimately the doctor only prescribed for 3 of the 4 with lesions and wanted to do blood work on the last and none for the kids with no vision visible lesions. (The rescue vet friend - and this was after calling them repeatedly and sobbing - after telling me to burn my house down told me to give the meds to everyone - so I don’t know who to listen to).
Somewhere in here my husband handed me a measuring spoon and told me it was 1oz for measuring to make the dip. And it turned out it was 2oz and so I didn’t realize until Friday that Wednesday’s dip was twice the amount it should have been. They seemed ok ish? Coffees little ear lesion was becoming her whole head, the fur there was coming off in sheets. I mean the seniors are not taking this well and they aren’t bathing and barely eating and losing a lot of sheds. So we continued with baths (we do garden sprayer on a covered counter top and then into several dog crates in a room with a space heater) because I can’t think of how else to ensure we get through this quickly. So we decided to give the intrafungol to the kitten, Wanda, and senior, Thumbley, with no lesions anyway and wait on the blood work for the last senior Peggy. Fast forward to last night….
All the seniors are losing hair by the sheet. Like it’s just a light tug and it’s just coming away to bare flesh. Coffee’s is scaly and oily? And Peggy had big patches missing on her back and The whole top of her head. Like you could feel some scale under the hair and if you lightly tug on the hair there it just comes off in huge chunks. And Thumbley, the last senior at 11, she had no lesions and nothing glowing before, a huge patch on her head and a ton of big patches around her scruff last night just came away. My vet doesn’t open again until Tuesday and no one is taking anyone today. Short of going to an emergency vet $$$$ on top of $$$$ already- I don’t know. Is it from not diluting the lime sulphur enough? From the meds?? Were these ringworm lesions that just didn’t glow under a black light (and still aren’t glowing) and were just festering under there without sign that are now shedding because of the dips?
Here’s some bad pictures of them. Peggy the tabby has had with me but you can just see her pink skin on the top of her head.
Any advice on how to get through this with 6 cats??? Wanda the kitten, the only one without a lesion now, is started coughing last night. We had some antibiotic from Névé when she had a cough when we brought her home, so we gave Wanda a littl for that until the vet opens. But I just don’t know what to do… I wasn’t ready to deal with all this cat illness yet. I find myself just sobbing on the room with them every day. My house is a wreck. Our whole living room has been sanitized, packed and put in the garage. The patio is still a contamination zone,. We have stopped cleaning or doing laundry since December 28th. No for one waking minute. My husband goes to work and I stay here and do that then he gets home and we tend to the cats and we go to bed and the next day the same. Our vet really isn’t being much help with advice beyond- burn your house down- and making feel like the most awful cat mom ever. She is as the one who had to put my old 18yr old Sod to sleep last year and I feel like she hates me so something for adopting new kittens. Or I hate me me for it I don’t know. We are in over our head.
 

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Wow, I’m sorry about all the typos. I can’t figure out how to edit it now. Dur..
 

fionasmom

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Welcome to The Cat Site! I am sorry that you are facing this nightmare. You can't edit your own posts until you have been here for a certain number of posts, so don't worry about that.

You said you had been reading, so I don't want to refer you back to what you already read. Look over these and see if anything helps.

Search Results for Query: ringworm
How to Deal with Ringworm in Cats [Inc. the Housecleaning Regime] – TheCatSite Articles
Ringworm In Cats | VCA Animal Hospitals
Ringworm in cats | International Cat Care

The last article says that using only one treatment or the other, topical or oral, is not usually successful and that both need to be used.

Now, as for the "burn the house down remark", that is really unprofessional and even implies that she, the vet, has no means of helping you. Granted, I was not there, so maybe the intent was meant to be comforting or an attempt at failed humor, but I would definitely be looking for another vet.

Members of TCS who have had issues with ringworm have often suggested going to a veterinary dermatologist. To be honest, my experience with specialists is that they usually get to the bottom of the issue much more quickly as they are experienced and well versed in that field and, in the end, you save money over letting the regular vet continue to take the "throw something at the wall" approach.

While I am not telling you not to go to the ER if you suspect something dire in one of your cats, I don't think that an ER vet will do much for ringworm.
 
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I was being a bit hyperbolic. I mean, she made it sound like we may never get rid of the contamination, the infection will drag on forever, and with 6 cats she didn’t have a lot of encouragement that we could actually get through this. She sent me a cleaning guide she got off the internet that made this whole cleaning regime seem insurmountable. And it feels like it is. I haven’t done anything but tend to cats and clean in almost a month, nothing. I’ve barely had time to eat and lost a bunch of weight already, I’m scared of every dust mote and stray cat hair now. I read a ton of papers by that KA Moriello vet, and a lot of her papers seem to suggest the main purpose of the ridiculous amount of cleaning is to not contaminate cultures when verifying cure but that contradicts like everything else out there that says just a couple of missed spores could undo months of regime and treatment.
 

fionasmom

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While it was nice of you to clarify the remark that was made by your vet, I still don't appreciate humor on the part of medical professionals when it veers in the direction of something may not be workable. A lot of people do search out those studies by Dr. Moriello and find them useful. However, I am not suggesting that you should....if they are not helping, they are not helping and you are still stuck with the problem. In fact, if you got that far, it is time for a new strategy.

I would look for the dermatologist. It might even be possible that if you can show that all the cats are infected, which is possible as all medical records are yours and have to be forwarded to any other doctor immediately, they may not expect you to bring every cat in for an actual visit. I would, in fact, bring that up as an option.
 
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