Ringworm

JacquieM

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Hello
It sounds as if you have a very good plan! I’m not sure where I’m at with spores ! Horrible little green things. I will try the fungassy test once I watch enough you tube videos to feel confident I am doing it correctly at least to the best of my ability. While the dogs are being treated the cats cannot come out yet. I also want to fog my house again especially the basement. I ordered chlorhexadrine also and the women suggested I use it 50/50 to spray down my basement before I fog. The fogger I may be using is oxine. They use it for fungas with poultry. Not sure yet though. Have to get more information. I want the least amount of spores floating once the animals are free. I was going to lime sulphur dip but my vet was against it. She said the anti fungal shampoos were less harsh and did a good job also of removing spores. I hope it is working. They all hate being left wet for 10 minutes. If I have to start over at some point with this I would probably shave my long haired cats also. My 19 year old Siamese has the thickest coat of all and I would not want to put her through that.
While Out today I noticed a new vet clinic that was recently built and is open. They offer more services than any other vet we have around here. If this does not heal on my animals I think I will try a different vet.
How in the world are you bathing a cat! I have to scruff Merlin pretty intensely just to administer the liquid med, and even to put the topical on his ears. He is very strong and absolutely always gets away from me. I really did not want to scruff him, so I tried many other positions, etc., last time. They never worked.
 

JacquieM

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I remember those days well when I had the same problem! I kept the kittens isolated, and they were treated, but I got it and somehow gave it to a few of my other cats. I was told the best thing was to change clothes after I visited the kittens and wash my hands really well, but that didn't work as well. If it's any comfort to you, the adult cats did well with a few treatments. It's a hassle, but we got through it and you will too!
I don’t know if I can go through changing my clothes again every single time I visit my cat in his sanctuary. I like to spend a lot of time with him and not leave him alone, so I’m in an out at least six times a day. It was very stressful for me switching in and out of clothes and shoes, and donning new gloves. Plus washing the clothes every single night. Quite frankly, this time I have not been changing at all and not wearing gloves. I have not gotten any lesions yet. I did buy shoe covers that I will start using once I can start my cleaning process (new HEPA-filter system-sealed vacuum arriving today).
 

vivibebean

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Oh my! I read so much about ringworm on the internet and you tube videos because my vet was so relaxed about the new kitten having it. I was panicking due to the fact I have several indoor cats and three yorkies. It spread and quickly. I thought I would never spend that amount on a vacuum but I purchased the Miele 3. I also purchased a gallon sprayer and would spray down walls, large dog crates and floors in my house. After bathing everyone with antifungal shampoos twice weekly my bathroom treated with rescue spray the same way. Threw away all of my cat trees. I could not think about the cost all I could think about were the microscopic spores floating around. I had a professional cleaning company come in and fog my house with everyone out. I myself fogged it again before releasing the cats out of quarantine. My vet does not do cultures so I am using the fungassy test at home. Still so cautious anytime a cat scratches anywhere. Vacuuming alost daily and watching for loss of hair or any lesion starting. This started in February and here I am not able to relax in my own home even now. I even threw out my living room furniture concerned about spores. My beautiful bedroom rug also gone. After reading how spores can live for 18 months I would not be at ease thinking every time a cat payed on the rug if there were spores reinfecting!!! Basement floor professionally cleaned. Everything was very costly but I became obsessed with ridding my house and pets of ringworm and the tiny spores. So try not to think about the costs because everyone shares how important environmental cleaning is. I wanted to run in the other direction but I do live alone and they are my responsibility. So no other option but clean, treat the pets and do it all over again.

also sandy. remember my ragdoll ahve these "lesions" back in 5/20. her culture came back NEGATIVE today. shockingly. anwyays, when i showed the dermatologist these pictures a while back she said it looked like excoriation. regardless of what it was then in 5/20. my ragdoll def does have ringworm lesiosn that i can can identify as it looks similar to previous lesions ive seen on them. she has one on top of right eye and another on top of left eye.
 

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vivibebean

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That schedule for cultures sounds good to me. I read yesterday, from a reputable source, that culturing during treatment is a good idea also, to make sure it is working. In another article, which may have been British, they said you can use a sterilized toothbrush to bring in a sample to your vet. I definitely do not want to be hauling my cat back-and-forth to the vet during an already stressful time. So I am going to see if she will let me do that.

so sorry that you need to go through ringworm after your cat with cancer. stress after stress isnt ideal at all, but keep hope. on the good side, ringworm is just a skin infection. it is not life threatening. definitely a pain though. also, since you only have one cat, you dont need to worry about cats passing it back to each other.

for any carpets or curtains, wash them throughly. allows the longest wash cycle for more agitation to remove as much hair as possible. use bleach if possible and/ or borox for laundry detergent. do not overstuff the machine because less fur will be removed. use hot water as well and dry as long as possible. store it away so that you dont have to clean it again.

cat towers arent worth keeping to be honest. not with the risk of ringworm coming back. for the wall you can swifter the wall or spray rescue on it.

for clothes, you shoudl change clothes after touching cats. what i would do is that i would have a pair of "dirty clothes" that i would keeping changing into in the cat's room for the whole day. i would keep my clean clothes outside the room until i change back into it. so that i wouldnt go through all of my clothes in a day because im in and out of their rooms alot. i would change those "dirty clothes" daily. instead of changing my dirty clothes several times a day


also should shoudl culture after they finish the treatment. and then try to get two straight negative culture about 3-4 weeks apart.
could do it during, but its more money and then most likely it will come back positive. if your cats has ringworm, they should respond to the antifungal medication.
itrafungol and 1-2 weekly lime sulfur bath is the way to go.


for the sofa, i also bought and expensive sofa (love sac) cost about 6-8k, but my sofa's cover can be removed in washed. i already knew of my cats positive ringworm before i moved into the new apartment. so i immediately quarantined my cats into the new bedroom without letting them touch anything else in my apartement. i had my love sac sofa disassembled and plastic wrapped prior to my cats arrival to my new apartment. im currently living in the living room with my plastic wrapped/disassembled love sac sofa.
since my cats has never touched anything outside of the bedroom of my new apartment, i only weekly disinfect the floors of my new apartment.

ive been twice weekly disinfecting my cats room, twice a day vacuum the cats rooms


not sure if you can remove the cover of your sofa, but if you could try to wash it the same way for the curtain and rugs^. and could try plastic wrapping it for now if you could.

sandy^ actually threw away everything in her living room includign the sofa. you can do that to, but its honestly up to you and how you're able to disinfect your sofa.
 
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JacquieM

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Thanks, Viv. And yes, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before – – keeping a set of clothes in the sanctuary room. For a smart person, sometimes I can be really dumb. I always changed outside the room, in the hallway. And you were right, I will change the cat trees. Just do it, and be done with it, and don’t think about it. The one that hurts is the 6 foot tall one, because it’s fantastic and I think about $180. However, I should remember that 2 cats enjoyed it for about 10 years. So I certainly got my money out of it. I’m amazed more people aren’t chiming in on our thread. In 2014, when Bunnalina was helping everybody on this site, many many people were dealing with ringworm.
What’s the news on your end?
 

JacquieM

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also sandy. remember my ragdoll ahve these "lesions" back in 5/20. her culture came back NEGATIVE today. shockingly. anwyays, when i showed the dermatologist these pictures a while back she said it looked like excoriation. regardless of what it was then in 5/20. my ragdoll def does have ringworm lesiosn that i can can identify as it looks similar to previous lesions ive seen on them. she has one on top of right eye and another on top of left eye.
This is your dog, right? So excoriation, not ringworm?
 

vivibebean

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I have some lime sulfur arriving today, and I was going to apply it just to his ears where the bald spots are. But now I’ve read that spot treatment is not recommended, because there can be spores throughout the coat. I’ve also read in several places that dipping an adult cat is too stressful, and that should be done only for kittens. I can’t imagine covering my big two year old cat with lime sulfur. Have you two used spot application?

My expensive vacuum should arrive by 8 PM tonight, and then I’m going to spend the next two days


cleaning like a maniac, LOL. If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry, right?
I wouldn’t exactly say it’s very very stressful. The cats don’t like it for sure but it’s not traumatizing to them. Haven’t tried spot dipping because I rather dip their entire body in case their ringworm is generalized. Dipping their entire body is ideal. Some people do spotting treatment though but that is up to you. Also I recommend getting the gallon rescue. It is very worth the money and it’ll be a lot of cleaning. Try to keep ur cat quarantine the entire treatment or until they get negative cultures.

also once you do the hard cleaning for every other room that your cat isn’t quarantining in, you don’t need to clean every other room as often.
but try to disinfext the cat’s room 1-2 times a weekly with at least daily vacuuming in the cats room.
environmental disinfection is very important. That is what I definitely learned since my cats got reinfected three times. Either from the environment or they were never actually cleared from it and kept on passing it to each other. Try to change their liter daily and rinse their bowls daily as well. Disinfect eveything in their room at least once or twice weekly. Change shoes when entering their room



also, if itmakes you feel better, the goal isn’t to eliminate all the ringworm because thag is impossible. There will always be microorganism around us. The goal is to eliminate as much ringworm as possible. Even though there is still ringworm in the evironment, there needs to be a certain level of it to cause an infection the cats and in us. For humans, it is harder for us to get ringworm infection because it needs to go through our skin and pretty sure we can tolerate a higher level of ringworm before it can cause an infection than cats tolerance of ringworm. So even though we aren’t getting ringworm, there prob still is ringworm in the environment, just not enough to cause an infection.

And the picture I showed ^ is of my cat. I have three cats :) should be excoriation in that picture. But she def has ringworm now
 

JacquieM

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Oh sorry, it was your cat. Hard to a tell, but I definitely saw the excoriation. You are really going thru it — 3 times. Yikes. I feel for you! Thanks so much for the info. I’ve read everything from reputable sources, and now even more. So true we become experts. I decided not to use any special addition in the laundry, but def hottest water, longest cycle, half full.
I did discover yesterday that spot treat with lime is not recommended. ☹ I feel like Merlin is going to freak out if I start spraying him all over with it. I have a huge litterbox; I’ll get him in that. I still haven’t committed to doing it. Sounds awful.

I will get more Rescue, but I’m going to supplement with Bleach (eg, for tile floors)— not together, tho!
I’d love to daily vacuum in the cat’s room, but he’s terrified of it. The foster mom mentioned that to me, and I thought Well every cat is afraid of the vacuum. But no, Merlin is deathly terrified of it. So I guess I’ll spend a fortune on swiffers instead. (if I could get him out of there so I could vacuum, but that’s really not an option)

“Change the litter” as in throw it out daily? I’ve always cleaned it twice a day. I was thinking I would throw it out weekly.

how do you disinfect the cat eating and drinking dishes? I guess bleach?

Merlin has a drinking fountain that he loves. I’m looking at it right now and wondering what to do about that. I guess I could disinfect the top surface every day. And then there’s a filter in it, of course. I had to get the fountain, because otherwise he plays in his water and splashes it all over. So so cute 😁

Thanks SO much for communicating with me about all of this. It can be a lonely road, because nobody understands unless they have experienced it. Appreciate the tips! I think I was in shock and denial for about a week; that’s why I was not communicating much.

Today is major major cleaning day number one. The vacuum arrived last night. Oh, question about that: previously I soaked vacuum components (12-yr-old vacuum) in a bleach solution. I hate the idea of doing that with components from a brand new $1200 vacuum. Thoughts?
 

JacquieM

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Did you spray the lime sulfur on your cats? Or dip them into it? (Sorry, I seem to have gone from not communicating much, to Oversharing, L O L)
 

vivibebean

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Oh sorry, it was your cat. Hard to a tell, but I definitely saw the excoriation. You are really going thru it — 3 times. Yikes. I feel for you! Thanks so much for the info. I’ve read everything from reputable sources, and now even more. So true we become experts. I decided not to use any special addition in the laundry, but def hottest water, longest cycle, half full.
I did discover yesterday that spot treat with lime is not recommended. ☹ I feel like Merlin is going to freak out if I start spraying him all over with it. I have a huge litterbox; I’ll get him in that. I still haven’t committed to doing it. Sounds awful.

I will get more Rescue, but I’m going to supplement with Bleach (eg, for tile floors)— not together, tho!
I’d love to daily vacuum in the cat’s room, but he’s terrified of it. The foster mom mentioned that to me, and I thought Well every cat is afraid of the vacuum. But no, Merlin is deathly terrified of it. So I guess I’ll spend a fortune on swiffers instead. (if I could get him out of there so I could vacuum, but that’s really not an option)

“Change the litter” as in throw it out daily? I’ve always cleaned it twice a day. I was thinking I would throw it out weekly.

how do you disinfect the cat eating and drinking dishes? I guess bleach?

Merlin has a drinking fountain that he loves. I’m looking at it right now and wondering what to do about that. I guess I could disinfect the top surface every day. And then there’s a filter in it, of course. I had to get the fountain, because otherwise he plays in his water and splashes it all over. So so cute 😁

Thanks SO much for communicating with me about all of this. It can be a lonely road, because nobody understands unless they have experienced it. Appreciate the tips! I think I was in shock and denial for about a week; that’s why I was not communicating much.

Today is major major cleaning day number one. The vacuum arrived last night. Oh, question about that: previously I soaked vacuum components (12-yr-old vacuum) in a bleach solution. I hate the idea of doing that with components from a brand new $1200 vacuum. Thoughts?

change the litter daily as in throwing out the whole litter. dont need to put a lot of litter in it since you only have one cat. i would wipe the litter down with baby wipes or a wet towel afterwards just because my cats leave fur in it. the litter box would be disinfected twice weekly.
also wheneevr you use rescue to disifnect the floors, dont use it with the wet swifter mop.
you could use bleach as well, but honestly, bleach is only really good when there no residue or any hair or anything at the floor or etc at all. any of those stuff will deactivate the bleach. using rescue is enough honestly. and bleach hurts the eyes a lot.

ive only dipped my cats. havent lime sulfur spot. my cats ringworm is probably generalized. i had a drinking fountain, automatic litter robot, and automatic feeder for my cats. i took all three away. they were harder to clean. rinsing their water bowl and food bowl twice daily and disinfected it all twice weekly was much easier. i would disinfect the bowls with rescue and then rinse off very well with dish soap several times to get all the residue off.

if your old vacuum was still a bit dirty before you use bleach to clean... honestly the bleach wont do too much because the dirt will deactivate bleach. there were a few articles saying that bleach isn't as effective to kill ringworm and that accerlated hydrogen peroxide is the best way. you can try spraying rescue on the vacuum. also since you have the new hepa vacuum, do you really need the old one anymore?

also the less you put in the cat's room, the less you would have to clean. try to remove as many things as possible. to help your cat cope, could give them a towel to sleep on and give thme cardboard boxes to sleep or scratch. you would have to change the bath towel and cardboard box daily though. i order a lot of amazon packages so i usually give my cats a new box everyday.
all three cats are quarantining in a large outdoor dog kernel in my bedroom. at first they were stressed out, but they are pretty used to it now and are back to their normal selves. the daily towels and cardboard box helps them cope a lottt.

i only recently messaged the rescue/shelter organization who gave me the kitten with the ringworm and started this nightmare. they advised me to get "the cage to an unoccupied area and illuminate it with a UV-C lamp". apparently, this lamp could disinfect ringworm, but of course nobody inluding the cats should be near it when the lamp is on. i never heard of this before and will probably invest in buying one^^
 

JacquieM

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That’s actually true of rescue too; the surface has to be already very clean before you apply the rescue.

i’m definitely throwing out the other vacuum.

unfortunately I can’t get his enormous tree out of that room until he can be let out of the room. Not sure what I’m going to do about that.

Thanks, that makes sense about the litter.

there is a futon sofa in that room, and I ordered a new futon mattress for it which arrived yesterday. The idea was to throw out the old one and put the new one in now that ringworm is gone, ha ha. I’ll just leave it in its packaging for six weeks until we’re clear.

i’ve read a lot about UV light, in other words sunlight, killing ringworm, and I was under the impression that you could throw everything out in the sunshine. I did a lot of that last time around with all of the cat beds and the cat trees, etc. Then a couple of days ago I read that the expert, Dr. moriello, doesn’t advise it. She says it’s unclear if UV light kills ringworm. Arrggh! I mean, that was a fabulous solution! Now I’m thinking I’ll just throw out all the cat beds too. (Man, this is really expensive.) So I would look up some information about that UV-C light before buying it.
OK, I better figure out how this vacuum works. Talk soon.
 

JacquieM

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Oh, and I was thinking spray versus dip. So you have not sprayed. (I’m realizing spot treatment with a lime is not helpful.)

I’m going to read everything again later today, and I’ll send you the link for the information about UV light.
 
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Sandy7272

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Hi JacquieM
I have been reading your posts about ringworm! It requires such a commitment of care and cleaning!
I had five cats and three yorkies. I purchased two 6 month old Maine coon kittens. Surprised when I found a lesion on my leg. Sure enough female kitten had a lesion on her head that appeared a month in from getting them. So long story short I was also stunned by it all. Vet was not really concerned even though multi pet household. Internet was my best resource for information. You cannot possibly understand if you haven’t gone through this experience.
I would toss the futon mattress or clean thoroughly if possible. Invest in a cat carrier. Remove him from the room while you get the cat tree out. Treating him and not removing items he hangs out will work against your efforts with meds. I did antifungal baths because it is what the vet recommended. I became more determined than they were in fighting me. What a process but I had a made up mind to rid my home and pets of ringworm and spores the best that I could. Fear set in after reading and it was my motivator.
Treatment is finished and I had to use the fungassy test because my vet does not do cultures. I am out in the country in CT and I would have to start with another vet for cultures. The vets here will not offer any kind of service without an initial appointment. So costly already😳 Im watching and hoping no reoccurrence! Not relaxed about this at all.
I did purchase a steam cleaner on Amazon when it first started. It is called the Neat Cube. Great little machine.
I steamed the three cat towers I had, my furniture and my beautiful hand woven bedroom rug😩 Because I had more animals than mostI just didn’t want the risk of reinfection. Everything in my house is very cleanable at this point. You have one kitty so it should be much easier. I purchased enough cat carriers for all and as they were bathed they remained in each until all my disinfecting was done. Cat fountain I removed and used easily cleaned dishes. Hot soap and water. Rinsed well. Litter boxes disinfected with rescue. So much laundry. Curtains were down and I would spray the entire room with rescue and the large dog crates they I used for quarantining them. I realized shortly into this that the cat towers were a hot spot for reinfection. Out they went. Couldn’t think about the cost because I would not have made it through. Get determined and you will succeed!
Also, I did spray my vacuum attachments with the rescue. Miele 3. Great vacuum. Bleach is so harsh and can be corrosive. I used it in my laundry for kitties bedding along with borax.
 

JacquieM

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Hi JacquieM
I have been reading your posts about ringworm! It requires such a commitment of care and cleaning!
I had five cats and three yorkies. I purchased two 6 month old Maine coon kittens. Surprised when I found a lesion on my leg. Sure enough female kitten had a lesion on her head that appeared a month in from getting them. So long story short I was also stunned by it all. Vet was not really concerned even though multi pet household. Internet was my best resource for information. You cannot possibly understand if you haven’t gone through this experience.
I would toss the futon mattress or clean thoroughly if possible. Invest in a cat carrier. Remove him from the room while you get the cat tree out. Treating him and not removing items he hangs out will work against your efforts with meds. I did antifungal baths because it is what the vet recommended. I became more determined than they were in fighting me. What a process but I had a made up mind to rid my home and pets of ringworm and spores the best that I could. Fear set in after reading and it was my motivator.
Treatment is finished and I had to use the fungassy test because my vet does not do cultures. I am out in the country in CT and I would have to start with another vet for cultures. The vets here will not offer any kind of service without an initial appointment. So costly already😳 Im watching and hoping no reoccurrence! Not relaxed about this at all.
I did purchase a steam cleaner on Amazon when it first started. It is called the Neat Cube. Great little machine.
I steamed the three cat towers I had, my furniture and my beautiful hand woven bedroom rug😩 Because I had more animals than mostI just didn’t want the risk of reinfection. Everything in my house is very cleanable at this point. You have one kitty so it should be much easier. I purchased enough cat carriers for all and as they were bathed they remained in each until all my disinfecting was done. Cat fountain I removed and used easily cleaned dishes. Hot soap and water. Rinsed well. Litter boxes disinfected with rescue. So much laundry. Curtains were down and I would spray the entire room with rescue and the large dog crates they I used for quarantining them. I realized shortly into this that the cat towers were a hot spot for reinfection. Out they went. Couldn’t think about the cost because I would not have made it through. Get determined and you will succeed!
Also, I did spray my vacuum attachments with the rescue. Miele 3. Great vacuum. Bleach is so harsh and can be corrosive. I used it in my laundry for kitties bedding along with borax.
[/QUOTE]
five cats and three Yorkies! What a wonderful family. And what a nightmare to have ringworm! Thank you so much for the tips. I too have read everything I could get my hands on and especially am reading Dr. moriello‘s papers. She is mentioned by many on this site as a ringworm expert. And she certainly is. Especially helpful is your feedback about the cat towers. I was going to get a steam cleaner and steam clean them, just like you. But based on what you’re saying and what I’ve read, even though it kills me, I’m going to get rid of them. I already put the hip-high ones out in the trash. I’ll post a picture below of the massive cat tree; I have two of them. That is a financial hit to get rid of both of them. I have to say I’m pretty angry at the rescue organization that they adopted out a cat with ringworm. My beloved Allie died of cancer (her treatment cost $10k; we got 2 extra years together), and two months later I got Merlin, and it has been stressful, expensive, and a real bummer. Although he is a fantastic fellow, and I love him very much.

Yes I took down all my curtains yesterday and did the machine wash protocol, and they are all stored away. I spent three hours this afternoon learning how my new Mile C3 vacuum works and cleaning the living room. I can’t believe how long it took. I was hoping to do at least three rooms.

I used rescue on everything last time, so I’m pretty annoyed the ringworm came back. But I admit that once merlins lesions were gone, I thought we were in the clear. I didn’t see a necessity for follow up cultures. But what does it matter – – if you’ve gone through six weeks of oral medication and intensive cleaning, and then your cat still has ringworm, what are you going to do?!

I just watched a ringworm video for vets in which it was said that pulsing the itraconazole one week on one week off is not necessary. They advise just do it 21 days straight. That would be much easier! I’m going to ask my vet about it, but she doesn’t seem to know much of anything about ringworm. Why don’t they educate themselves?!

I will remove the cat fountain. Such a shame. I have his food dishes soaking in bleach. You don’t think that’s necessary?

Thanks so much for your comments.
 

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Oh hey, one more thing: have you heard anything about what to do with Books? The sanctuary room has many bookshelves in it and many books. I can’t imagine what I’m supposed to do about them. I mean Beyond wiping down the shelves repeatedly. 😳
 
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Sandy7272

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Beautiful cat towers🙁 I would definitely hate to toss them but I don’t know if it would be a place of reinfection with the spores? I also purchased the same swiffer products and found out they do get the hairs that my vacuum may have missed! I had a small collection of books on a book case and I did use Lysol wipes to remove any possible hair and then put them in a Rubbermaid tote for awhile. I took things off of shelving that I was able to and wiped down with wipes and put those also in totes. Things are still in totes because if I find a reinfection it is something that I would not have to put away again. Right now I’m all about the easiest way to keep the hair from flying around with my pets. The Miele vacuum is great. I agree the vets should know more about ringworm and treatment. She gave me tresaderm topical for the lesion on my cats head which did not seem to help at all. I insisted on oral for all my cats and then had to do the same for my dogs once I found a lesion. Gave me topical and all it did was get worse!
I am waiting and watching for any signs of a reoccurrence. It has been several weeks since treatment ended for the cats😳 I also would like to know how long does it take approximately for a reinfection to occur? I think my environment/house was disinfected the best that I could possibly do. Electrostatic spraying from a professional company and then I used rescue in a fogger and did it myself before Letting the cats out of quarantine. Still I am going day by day with it all. I have to say it sounds like your previous kitty was loved very much and sorry you had to say good bye 💕
 

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Hi! I totally agree that the trees must be infested with ringworm. I’m going to have to toss them. I have accepted it. As I said to VIv, 2 other cats enjoyed them for 10 years, so I certainly got my money out of them. OMG, I had the exact same experience with topical medication! I wasted 2 weeks with terbafine cream and Merlin sequestered, and it just got worse and worse. I understand she wanted results before prescribing oral med. But on this second round she wanted to do a culture and wait, and I said absolutely not.

I really took what you said to heart today, I didn’t realize I would go to these extremes, but I did wipe everything I could down with rescue and pack it away. This way I can do quick cleaning all week. Well, it’s never quick. I have finished the living room and dining room, and I’m just about to wash the kitchen floor.

that’s great to hear about the swiffer, except now I’m thinking I should use it after I vacuum not before. I agree the Miele C3 is amazing. I was not happy about spending that money, but now I can see that it’s totally worth it. What a fine piece of machinery. Also I feel so much better using it in this situation. My shark navigator was 12 years old with no hepa filter or any kind of filter really, and I suppose it was shooting spores right out the back of the vacuum.

I saw what you said before about rescue in a fogger. I’m definitely interested in that. I’ll look into it. I’m guessing you looked back at 2014 and read all of those many many posts by Bunnelina and others who had ringworm? From those I learned that Dr. Moriello is a ringworm expert in the US. So I have been looking up all of her recommendations. Maybe you could look for what she says about when we can safely know we are in the clear. There is also a shelter medicine organization that I’ve read some really great stuff from the past few days. I’ll send you the link. Interestingly, they highly recommend that the cat be cultured every week to track what is happening. And then as most others say, they highly recommend 2 cultures post treatment, 2 to 3 weeks apart, to confirm that all is well. I’m sure you know more about this than me at this point.

Allie was very special and deeply loved, yes. I had a necklace made with her whiskers in it that I have not taken off since she passed.

So I did it: I let the rescue organization know exactly how I feel about adopting out a cat with ringworm. I was very polite and respectful, and actually started with gratitude for their rescue of Merlin. And I of course would never badmouth them because of all the good they do.

Thanks for the idea about the books! I can’t cope with that in the living room, where there are 100 books. But I can do it in the sanctuary room where there are maybe 45.

I am sending all good wishes that you never ever have to deal with this again.
 
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