Severe Case Of Ringworm That Wont Go Away

ray_oz

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Hi All,

We adopted a small kitten from a house with some hair missing on its right ear, we were told by the owners that it was from the mum licking them too hard (we didnt know better).

Then after a visit to the vet we were told it was a case of ringworm, we started to apply topical cream (Nizoral 2%) and not much had changed, then the hair loss started to spread across its face after 2 weeks.

We were deseprate to get rid of it so we purchased more anti-fungal topical creams (Terbinafine, Miconazole, Clotrimazole etc) and we have also been applying them.. We started to get deseprate so we got some Grisovin tablets to feed it also, the tablets are 125mg each and we are breaking them into 1/4 = 31mg, we are making them small doses as we have read it could be harmful to the kitten, as it is only 0.6g (a small kitten).

The ringworm has gotten worse and it has spread across her whole head (whole head missing hair) and a lot of her face, she has also lost all the hair on her left ear now (with some hair growing back on the right ear).

As we still got more desperate we read some threads and also purchased some Collodial Silver and started also using that everyday with no effect at all.

We wash it twice a week with antifungal shampoo and the lyme sulfar dip.

We also wash the house twice a week heavily with bleach and anti-fungal disinfectant, a mixture of mopping and spraying the cat tree and play area down.

-

In terms of topical we are using
- Nizoral 2% cream - daily
- Terbinafine cream - daily
- Miconazole cream - daily
- Clotrimazole cream - daily
- Collodial Silver spray - daily
- Maleseb Shampoo (Miconazole) - twice a week
- Lyme Sulfar Dips - twice a week

In terms of oral we are using
- Grisovin tablets - twice a day
- Healthy expensive cat food - daily

We feel are doing everything possible and this has continued now for nearly 3 months !! how do we get rid of it, has anyone ever gotten rid of successfully ?

She seems overall healthy and is very playful, healthy and active.

We have also got it tested for FIV and FELV as we were worried its immune system may be the cause, it all came back negative. We really want to get rid of the ringworm, please help !
 

laurus

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Hi,
Did you visit your vet?
There is two types of ringworm and you have to determinate which is on your cat : Microsporum (M. canis, M. gypseum) or Trichofyton (Tr. mentagrophytes)

There is danger for your family as ringworm is contagious for human.
 
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ray_oz

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Yes we went to vet and recieved the information above, a light test and visual test was done to determine it was ringwotm and no culture was taken , does medication differ between the different types of ringworm infections ? Is there anything else we can do ?
 

laurus

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Yes, you can try to do something more. Could you show the pic how is large area, please? is there a matter?
PS
Coloidal silver can help if it is 20ppm (concentration) (I mean oral)
 

pushylady

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A lot of people struggle with ringworm in their cats. It seems to be fairly common in some areas. There a quite a few threads about it here, and this one in particular has helped a lot of people. It's very long, but has very useful information in it.
 

arouetta

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Get a second opinion. I can't imagine a fungal infection not responding at all to all that. My bet is that it was misdiagnosed and it's not fungal based.
 

laurus

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Ray_oz, this is a step-by-step for you from my friend who is nurse and who passed through ringworm.


"Hi there!
To start off I just want to reassure you that it is possible to get rid of ringworm. I have done it 2 times in my life. And yes I cried a lot and it is A LOT of work.

The first time one of my cat got ringworm was from a new plant I brought in the house. Ringworm can be found in the soil. The second time I got it was when I imported a kitten from Russia. I have 6 cats so dealing with ringworm was a nightmare. Even with 6 cats I was able to get rid of it two times with NO recontamination.

Firstly are you sure your cat has ringworm? Was it positive to a culture or a PCR. Cat skin problem can sometime look like ringworm but it isn't. The best way to diagnose ringworm is the PCR as it doesn't take 21 days as a culture to get the result.

So if it is really ringworm the best medical treatment that worked for my cats is Itraconazole and Lime sulfur. My vet doesn't believe in the cream topical treatment. Lime sulfur stink but it does really work. But you also need a very good systemic medication like the Itraconazole. The dose will be calculated according to the cat weight. For the lime sulfur I would dip the cat entire body (full bath) in it twice a week and put lime sulfur directly on the lesions everyday (morning and evening) You have to mix the lime sulfur with water according to the direction. I would keep the same mix in a spray bottle only for a couple days (less than a week). If you have other pets, they also need to be dip in lime sulfur once or twice a week.


The other part of getting rid of ringworm is the environmental decontamination. This is VERY IMPORTANT. The cat with the lesion need to be in a restricted area (a small room) with almost nothing in that room. No furniture. Basically only a blanket, litter box, food and water bowl. You will want to desinfect completely this room every 2-3 days. At least 2 times per week. You will want to desinfect everything including the floor, walls, light switch, blankets, bowls, litter box... Just everything in that room. For all the hard surface I was using accelerated hydrogen peroxide. It has to be the accelerated one. I even wash the floor with it. It was proven to be more effective against ringworm than bleach!! For everything that goes into the washing machine I would wash in warm water with soap and Borax. The thing that is important here is to not over filed the washing machine. It will wash better with only a little bit of clothes, blanket in it. Does your house has carpet? Or carpet toy like cat tree? You need to get ride of those as carpet can contain ringworm spores for around 18 months. That is how the cat will get reinfected. Vaccuming the floor with a good HEPA filter vaccum is also necessary before moping the floor with accelerated hydrogen peroxide. Don't forget to desinfect the vaccum afterwards. The air exchanger filter also need to be change or desinfected. I was very crazy about my ringworm situation and EVERYTHING that I own was desinfected multiple time with accelerated hydrogen peroxyde or washed in the washing machine. All my clothes, curtains... EVERYTHING!! Every object! I also did a big clean up and threw thing out. Don't forget that when entering the kitten room you need to change clothes after. If not you are bringing spores into your whole house.

I hope this help. This is the way I successfully did it two times with 6 cats cohabiting together. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work but it is possible!

Good luck! :) "
 

chloechance

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I fostered and unbeknowst to me the 4 little kittens brought ringworm into my home. It spread to myself, my nephews, my friend, her kids, my cats. Talk about an itchy nightmare. For humans its easy to rid bc we are not full of hair. Cats though its a nightmare. I had to isolate my own cats and everyone recieved lime sulfer dips 1x a week for 8 weeks. I hated puttjng my cats through that. They also were on a med that began w a G. Luckily by week 8 everyone was negative. We celebrated big lol. But we also had to rid of all their blankets, toys, etc. We did not want to take any chances. So no further advice just l understand the stress and wish you good luck!
 
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ray_oz

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Thanks you laurus laurus pushylady pushylady C chloechance - thanks for the advice and we will follow it, as an update it has gotten alot better across its face but its ear and scalp is bad.... but now its spread to its feet that it uses to scratch its ear !!! Its almost like it has a life of its own and once we kill it from one area it just jumps to another.
 

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ray_oz

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Below are OLD photos from 1 month ago !! The first photo below is when we first got it and it was on just the left ear... once that started to heal, it spread to the other ear and across its face (2nd picture) from a few weeks ago,.. now that is healing slowly, its spread to its scalp as shown in my last post... and now we think its spread to the feet !!
 

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ray_oz

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Oh also thanks arouetta arouetta

Thanks you laurus laurus pushylady pushylady C chloechance - thanks for the advice and we will follow it, as an update it has gotten alot better across its face but its ear and scalp is bad.... but now its spread to its feet that it uses to scratch its ear !!! Its almost like it has a life of its own and once we kill it from one area it just jumps to another.
 
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ray_oz

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anymore advice from anyone ? Im hoping for a secret magic solution, we are nearing 3 months and it wont go away.....

Could it be a staph infection ? would it be the same treatment ?
 
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arouetta

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anymore advice from anyone ? Im hoping for a secret magic solution, we are nearing 3 months and it wont go away.....

Could it be a staph infection ? would it be the same treatment ?
If it were a staph infection, your cat would be dead by now.

There's several types of skin problems. That's why I recommend a second opinion, you might be dealing with a dermatitis of some kind, not ringworm.
 

sydney

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If your treating your cat everyday you can and it's not helping I would look at your environment. Instead of cleaning your whole house twice a week, I would seclude the cat in its own room or a bathroom, clean the whole house throughly. And clean the cats room every single day. Those spores are everywhere. We had a client call the other day who has her kitten with ringworm in a bathroom. When she goes in the bathroom to treat the kitten, she the. Wipes down every area
In the bathroom, she even changes her clothes. She uses a black light and said after she gives her kitten the sulfur bath she will put the light on her and she looks good no spores but then just a couple hours later and she uses the light again and they are back. It's a co start battle. Secluding the cat and cleaning is key, no bedding too.
 

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Yes we went to vet and recieved the information above, a light test and visual test was done to determine it was ringwotm and no culture was taken , does medication differ between the different types of ringworm infections ? Is there anything else we can do ?

A culture should be done - a Woods lamp test is not as accurate. Some things fluoresce that are NOT ringworm while some RW will not fluoresce. Personally (and this is just my opinion) I would never give oral fungal medicine without a definite diagnosis. I dealt with it years ago when I was new - I bought a kitten that had it. It took awhile and a lot of work but we got rid of it.
 

laurus

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anymore advice from anyone ?
Thanks for pics, you have a very nice cat!
But it will be better and easy to cure him if you shave your cat.
Also I would like to recommend you to use this product : Accelerated Hydrogen Peroxide aka AHP for cleaning your house and spray cat tree, meuble etc.
I'm not sure if I can write here the link but you have to type in google this name and it will be a Virox brand Animal health. Actually it is the best solution on the market and not expensive for its quality.
 

2furbabies

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As someone else mentioned a culture needs to be done to see if it is ringworm for certain. The culture is typically watched for several days at the vet's to see if it grows/spreads. I've battled ringworm on and off my entire life because it likes my Persians. The only thing that ever worked for me was the Lime Sulphur baths. My 2 cats had it really bad and I caught it and was peppered from head to toe. My dermatologist said it was the worst case he had ever seen. But... we got rid of it with the Lime Sulphur! Nothing else worked. To this day I still keep the stuff on hand just in case.
 

intertwangled

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On the environmental cleaning subject:

We have our affected animals quarantined (ringworm kitten with another foster home; and my dog has a few suspect bumps currently awaiting culture result; she is either outside or in our spare bedroom).

But I'm wondering about disinfecting of the rest of the house-- particularly our master bedroom. We had a foster kitten who had the run of the room for 1-2 weeks before we realized she had ringworm (as evidenced by our own lesions). Only on her ears and possibly the back of her legs from what we were able to see. Do just a few areas affect the whole room even without direct contact? The closet doors were often ajar; sometimes the drawers were slightly ajar too. Did you all have to launder everything? Take all the clothes out, wash, disinfect the drawers, put back, etc.? My closets are so full... I don't know how I'm going to get to everything in there. Would it suffice to spray my closet clothes with lysol or accelerated hydrogen peroxide? How much purging is reasonable/necessary?

For the rest of the house (where the kitten was never in, but it's possible my other animals may have carried her spores from our master bedroom to other rooms)... how crazy do I go? Do I wipe every book and knick-knack down on the bookshelf or would a good dusting do with the Swiffer and just stick to walls, floors, ceilings, and furniture?

Logic says "more is is better" but I really need to find out what is a reasonable balance because I'm so out of balance right now! I've reacted so horribly to this situation psychologically/emotionally, I was diagnosed with an "adjustment disorder" because I haven't been able to contain my anxiety or even work up any appetite in the past two weeks (losing a lot of weight). Just saw a therapist yesterday for the first time for anything like this. I've never had any anxiety like this in the past, over any situation. My husband worries I'm overthinking/ overdoing (he feels like I've cleaned enough, but really I've only covered a few rooms completely and not our master bedroom yet aside from floors and bleach-spraying/wiping the walls and spraying down furniture). I haven't gotten down to specific objects and clothes. But I'm really trying to make sure this never ever happens to our home/ family again.

Wish I had the money to pay professionals so I could rest and finally (one day) eat properly again!
 

intertwangled

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Also, regarding cat trees. Our affected foster kitten (who was always indoors) never had contact with the cat tree (a large cat tree outside on the front porch). Our adult cat uses this outdoor tree all the time; it's his safety place. I don't see any symptoms on my adult cat (who has never had direct contact with the kitten but may have had environmental spore exposure by virtue of having been in the same room(s) at different times than the kitten). But this tree is impossible to clean. Do I get rid of it or do I just keep an eye on my adult cat?
 
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