Hello everyone.
I adopted a cat (Persian) in August 2022, she is turning 10 months. When she came to me, I noticed she had a small bald spot on her stomach. I immediately took her to the vet, and he mentioned its just a regular fungal infection and gave me a topical ointment to apply twice daily. This cleared up pretty fast. Fast forward to around a month or two later, she started to lose fur on her ears. She had ear mites back then, so I assumed it was because of that and was in the process of treating her for her mites. However she kept losing her fur on the ears until it became red, inflamed and completely bald. Again, the vet said it was a mixed fungal + bacterial infection, gave me oral fluconazole and an ointment and it cleared up within 2 weeks.
Fast forward another 3 months, I bathed my cat and while blow drying noticed some red spots all over her body. I immediately took her to the vet, they clipped her fur and there were pale pink spots covering her entire body. Again, the vet said it is a fungal infection and gave me topical ointment and ketoconazole shampoo to use for a month. There was no progress and I changed my vet, and did a woods lamp test (this is of last week). Her lesions all lit up like a Christmas tree. The vet prescribed her oral fluconazole syrup (30 days), terbinafine tablet (1/3 tablet for 3 weeks), an omega-3 supplement, topical miconazole cream twice daily and a small vial of lime sulfur which she told me to dilute to 1:32 and apply twice weekly for 8 weeks. The issue is, I live in a country where we do not have developed vet facilities. We don't have facilities to do fungal cultures etc. They provided me a small vial of lime sulfur because its not available in the country, and it is brought by that particular vet from the States in small amounts. That small vial (approx 10 ml) is SO EXPENSIVE. So rather than a dip, as it is not feasible where I live, I can only mix 1 ml of the lime sulfur solution with 32 ml water and spray it my cat liberally and rub it on her fur. I wanted to order the lime sulfur solution myself, but it is ridiculously expensive to ship and most don't even ship to where I live!
The issue is, none of my family members have gotten ringworm. She is not itchy. She is not flaky. It literally just looks like her normal, bare skin. The lesions are not spreading and I have not noticed any new lesions the last one month, but the fur just won't grow! I also live in a single pet household. I have kept her quarantined in our balcony since the woods lamp test (it is completely covered. It only has tile floors, her litter box and food bowls as well as an A/C since we live in a very hot country and are experiencing a heat wave (up to 104 F). But she is absolutely DEVASTATED. She cries, howls, is exhibiting stress behaviour, not wanting to eat properly, etc. Prior to this mess, she used to roam around our apartment like a happy cat and eat like an absolute PIG.
I'm also losing my mind about cleaning, because the cleaning solutions mentioned in these threads (rescue, hepa vacuums, swiffers) are not available in my country and I live in a 5200 sqt apartment. I did everything I could. I wiped everything with 1:10 bleach solution and a general disinfectant. But there is not much else I am able to do because I dont have the resources here. However, we have a housekeeper (which is a cultural thing over here) who cleans our house on a DAILY basis, including sweeping, mopping, cleaning the glasses etc.
I'm just so confused because none of my family has gotten ringworm, from children to the elderly. I don't know whether keeping her isolated is the best idea because shes so stressed it absolutely breaks my heart. I also wanted to ask how do you know if the ringworm is actually healing? I am just absolutely distraught. I threw away so many of her toys, carriers, scratching posts that I had ordered from abroad because I just can't disinfect it.
Please help me.
*Note: They do not have facilities to do fungal cultures here. So I will never really know if she has been cleared of ringworm other than a woods lamp test. By the way, this is the ONLY vet in my entire country that has a woods lamp. I am absolutely defeated.
I adopted a cat (Persian) in August 2022, she is turning 10 months. When she came to me, I noticed she had a small bald spot on her stomach. I immediately took her to the vet, and he mentioned its just a regular fungal infection and gave me a topical ointment to apply twice daily. This cleared up pretty fast. Fast forward to around a month or two later, she started to lose fur on her ears. She had ear mites back then, so I assumed it was because of that and was in the process of treating her for her mites. However she kept losing her fur on the ears until it became red, inflamed and completely bald. Again, the vet said it was a mixed fungal + bacterial infection, gave me oral fluconazole and an ointment and it cleared up within 2 weeks.
Fast forward another 3 months, I bathed my cat and while blow drying noticed some red spots all over her body. I immediately took her to the vet, they clipped her fur and there were pale pink spots covering her entire body. Again, the vet said it is a fungal infection and gave me topical ointment and ketoconazole shampoo to use for a month. There was no progress and I changed my vet, and did a woods lamp test (this is of last week). Her lesions all lit up like a Christmas tree. The vet prescribed her oral fluconazole syrup (30 days), terbinafine tablet (1/3 tablet for 3 weeks), an omega-3 supplement, topical miconazole cream twice daily and a small vial of lime sulfur which she told me to dilute to 1:32 and apply twice weekly for 8 weeks. The issue is, I live in a country where we do not have developed vet facilities. We don't have facilities to do fungal cultures etc. They provided me a small vial of lime sulfur because its not available in the country, and it is brought by that particular vet from the States in small amounts. That small vial (approx 10 ml) is SO EXPENSIVE. So rather than a dip, as it is not feasible where I live, I can only mix 1 ml of the lime sulfur solution with 32 ml water and spray it my cat liberally and rub it on her fur. I wanted to order the lime sulfur solution myself, but it is ridiculously expensive to ship and most don't even ship to where I live!
The issue is, none of my family members have gotten ringworm. She is not itchy. She is not flaky. It literally just looks like her normal, bare skin. The lesions are not spreading and I have not noticed any new lesions the last one month, but the fur just won't grow! I also live in a single pet household. I have kept her quarantined in our balcony since the woods lamp test (it is completely covered. It only has tile floors, her litter box and food bowls as well as an A/C since we live in a very hot country and are experiencing a heat wave (up to 104 F). But she is absolutely DEVASTATED. She cries, howls, is exhibiting stress behaviour, not wanting to eat properly, etc. Prior to this mess, she used to roam around our apartment like a happy cat and eat like an absolute PIG.
I'm also losing my mind about cleaning, because the cleaning solutions mentioned in these threads (rescue, hepa vacuums, swiffers) are not available in my country and I live in a 5200 sqt apartment. I did everything I could. I wiped everything with 1:10 bleach solution and a general disinfectant. But there is not much else I am able to do because I dont have the resources here. However, we have a housekeeper (which is a cultural thing over here) who cleans our house on a DAILY basis, including sweeping, mopping, cleaning the glasses etc.
I'm just so confused because none of my family has gotten ringworm, from children to the elderly. I don't know whether keeping her isolated is the best idea because shes so stressed it absolutely breaks my heart. I also wanted to ask how do you know if the ringworm is actually healing? I am just absolutely distraught. I threw away so many of her toys, carriers, scratching posts that I had ordered from abroad because I just can't disinfect it.
Please help me.
*Note: They do not have facilities to do fungal cultures here. So I will never really know if she has been cleared of ringworm other than a woods lamp test. By the way, this is the ONLY vet in my entire country that has a woods lamp. I am absolutely defeated.
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