- Joined
- Aug 1, 2018
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Hello Everyone,
I am new here, but thought I would post our little girl's situation to the community to see if anyone has every experienced something similar, or had any additional thoughts.
About a month ago, we took in a litter of 4 kittens from a client of my husband's. They own a dairy farm, and have several outdoor cats running around - not necessarily feral, but not cared for either. Inevitably, every year, there are kittens. This year, they contacted my husband because some of them seemed quite sick, and they knew that we take in rescues. They honestly wouldn't have done anything about it (just let "nature" take its course) but their young daughter threw a fit and was upset about them, so they asked for help to appease her (glad she has more compassion than her parents).
Anyway... he brought them home and they were in awful shape - URI's and eyes basically sealed shut and infected. They were about 4-6 weeks old at that time. Our vet immediately started them on amoxycillin and ofloxacin ophthalmic drops for their eyes (and de-wormed them). To our relief, they started to respond quickly and their URI's and eyes cleared up - all of them except for the smallest one (who we've named Frannie). Her eyes cleared up, but her URI did not.
Obviously, the URI was originally viral in nature, but she clearly had some sort of secondary bacterial infection given the thick yellow snotty nasal discharge she was regularly sneezing out (or choking on as she reverse-sneezed). They switched her meds to azythromycin - still no luck. Then they tried clindamycin - no improvement. The finally they gave her a convenia injection - which also did nothing. This has been over the course of a month and there has not been a single bit of improvement on any of those meds. During this time she gained a bunch of weight (she was the most emaciated when they came in), she eats like a horse, and her activity level improved to the point where she would run around and play (until she started sneezing out snot and would then stop and go lay down). Despite all of the antibiotics she's been on, she has not had one single day of diarrhea either.
Now comes the scary part - Sunday night she started having seizures. Very brief (10 seconds or less) focal seizures that started to increase in frequency. We immediately took her to our 24 hr emergency/specialty center and they gave her meds to stop the seizures and started bloodwork. Her CBC results were un-remarkable and only reflected a mildly anemic kitten which a low grade infection. She is FeLV and FIV negative as well. We are still waiting for the results of a liver bile acids test to rule out a liver shunt. The neurologist that consulted on her case didn't think an MRI would be beneficial right now due to her small size - that certain detail wouldn't be able to be seen because of it. His recommendation was to start her on Keppra, get her seizures under control, add in another antibiotic and a steroid for inflammation and see where that got us. All of this and she's only 8-10 weeks old - this poor little girl.
I have a background in neuropsychology, so I immediately started pouring over published literature, looking for anything I could find on secondary reactive seizure disorders in cats - I truly feel that this is somehow related to her URI (or whatever it is) that is progressing unchecked because no drug will touch it. I stumbled upon cryptococcus (fungal) infections that caused a lightbulb to go off - she had almost all of the symptoms, and unchecked it can progress to neurologic involvement, causing seizures and eye issues. While we were trying to get her URI under control, she had two random issues with her pupils that seemed to resolve on their own, so further diagnostics weren't pursued. Then a few weeks later, she started having these seizures. She has a URI which isn't responding to antibiotics (maybe because it's not caused by bacteria?) and I remember commenting when she came to us that her nose seemed odd compared to the others - it almost had a little "hump" on it - like an extreme roman nose. The only thing she's missing that would be a hallmark of the disease would be skin lesions, but not all cats will present with all symptoms of any given disease.
The vets that are treating her are great, but seem really reluctant to even test her for this (the primary internal medicine specialist finally agreed to at least call the lab today and find out what they would need to test for it after I nagged them for the 10th time about it). They seem to think it's rare and unlikely - but nothing else is working, and the possible diagnoses that they are chasing down seem even more unlikely given that she has very few symptoms of them. One vet even said that they would need to test her for rabies if she didn't make it... RABIES? But they think that a fungal infection in a kitten that came from a filthy (pigeon infested) farm is too remote of a possibility to test for?
Sorry that this is so long... she has been a tricky case since she came here and I am just trying to be the best advocate for her. We intend to keep her, since nobody else is likely to put up with all of her issues (or the cost of them), and the other kittens have gone on to a foster home where they are doing great (except her sister, who seems very bonded with her, we agreed to keep her as a foster along with Frannie so that she wouldn't be alone - now her sister - Lilly - is lost without her since she's been hospitalized since Sunday night). Any ideas are greatly appreciated, especially if anyone has any experience with a crypto infection.
I am new here, but thought I would post our little girl's situation to the community to see if anyone has every experienced something similar, or had any additional thoughts.
About a month ago, we took in a litter of 4 kittens from a client of my husband's. They own a dairy farm, and have several outdoor cats running around - not necessarily feral, but not cared for either. Inevitably, every year, there are kittens. This year, they contacted my husband because some of them seemed quite sick, and they knew that we take in rescues. They honestly wouldn't have done anything about it (just let "nature" take its course) but their young daughter threw a fit and was upset about them, so they asked for help to appease her (glad she has more compassion than her parents).
Anyway... he brought them home and they were in awful shape - URI's and eyes basically sealed shut and infected. They were about 4-6 weeks old at that time. Our vet immediately started them on amoxycillin and ofloxacin ophthalmic drops for their eyes (and de-wormed them). To our relief, they started to respond quickly and their URI's and eyes cleared up - all of them except for the smallest one (who we've named Frannie). Her eyes cleared up, but her URI did not.
Obviously, the URI was originally viral in nature, but she clearly had some sort of secondary bacterial infection given the thick yellow snotty nasal discharge she was regularly sneezing out (or choking on as she reverse-sneezed). They switched her meds to azythromycin - still no luck. Then they tried clindamycin - no improvement. The finally they gave her a convenia injection - which also did nothing. This has been over the course of a month and there has not been a single bit of improvement on any of those meds. During this time she gained a bunch of weight (she was the most emaciated when they came in), she eats like a horse, and her activity level improved to the point where she would run around and play (until she started sneezing out snot and would then stop and go lay down). Despite all of the antibiotics she's been on, she has not had one single day of diarrhea either.
Now comes the scary part - Sunday night she started having seizures. Very brief (10 seconds or less) focal seizures that started to increase in frequency. We immediately took her to our 24 hr emergency/specialty center and they gave her meds to stop the seizures and started bloodwork. Her CBC results were un-remarkable and only reflected a mildly anemic kitten which a low grade infection. She is FeLV and FIV negative as well. We are still waiting for the results of a liver bile acids test to rule out a liver shunt. The neurologist that consulted on her case didn't think an MRI would be beneficial right now due to her small size - that certain detail wouldn't be able to be seen because of it. His recommendation was to start her on Keppra, get her seizures under control, add in another antibiotic and a steroid for inflammation and see where that got us. All of this and she's only 8-10 weeks old - this poor little girl.
I have a background in neuropsychology, so I immediately started pouring over published literature, looking for anything I could find on secondary reactive seizure disorders in cats - I truly feel that this is somehow related to her URI (or whatever it is) that is progressing unchecked because no drug will touch it. I stumbled upon cryptococcus (fungal) infections that caused a lightbulb to go off - she had almost all of the symptoms, and unchecked it can progress to neurologic involvement, causing seizures and eye issues. While we were trying to get her URI under control, she had two random issues with her pupils that seemed to resolve on their own, so further diagnostics weren't pursued. Then a few weeks later, she started having these seizures. She has a URI which isn't responding to antibiotics (maybe because it's not caused by bacteria?) and I remember commenting when she came to us that her nose seemed odd compared to the others - it almost had a little "hump" on it - like an extreme roman nose. The only thing she's missing that would be a hallmark of the disease would be skin lesions, but not all cats will present with all symptoms of any given disease.
The vets that are treating her are great, but seem really reluctant to even test her for this (the primary internal medicine specialist finally agreed to at least call the lab today and find out what they would need to test for it after I nagged them for the 10th time about it). They seem to think it's rare and unlikely - but nothing else is working, and the possible diagnoses that they are chasing down seem even more unlikely given that she has very few symptoms of them. One vet even said that they would need to test her for rabies if she didn't make it... RABIES? But they think that a fungal infection in a kitten that came from a filthy (pigeon infested) farm is too remote of a possibility to test for?
Sorry that this is so long... she has been a tricky case since she came here and I am just trying to be the best advocate for her. We intend to keep her, since nobody else is likely to put up with all of her issues (or the cost of them), and the other kittens have gone on to a foster home where they are doing great (except her sister, who seems very bonded with her, we agreed to keep her as a foster along with Frannie so that she wouldn't be alone - now her sister - Lilly - is lost without her since she's been hospitalized since Sunday night). Any ideas are greatly appreciated, especially if anyone has any experience with a crypto infection.
