Zena now possibly toxo pneumonia again!

[Kwik]

As for mine with the eye squinting (Max)he is FHV positive and after extensive testing it was confirmed by the Veterinary opthamologist and addressed,I try to prevent flare ups ( Llysine is great support)as best I can ,he also has a little tear duct issue ,daily Optixcare lube helps tremendously...... everyone got screwed up with my running out of lysine,,going in for surgery and forgetting all about it.....believe it or not since I've resumed the Lysine even Timmy's loss of Iris pigment seems to be coming back- I hear this is pretty much unheard of but his eye is actually turning back to green!!!Between fervent prayer and lysine support something truly amazing is happening

Graycie has been through every trst,,xrays sent out to radiology specialists as well- since shes impossible to medicate we tried steroid injection with good result- lasted 3 months no coughing.

So yes- thousands of dollars later I believe nothing has been overlooked and all possible tests performed to exclude cancer-we do the best we can until we can't

Can I suggest you keep a daily chart that you can check off when you medicate each cat(& yourself!!!!especially yourself)this way there's no way you can miss a dose or overdose..... there's just too much going on to mentally keep track of and it would be much easier if you logged in thst you administer "x" at "x" time for "x" cat- perhaps stick it on the refrigerator or where you keep the meds

 

[Meowmee]

As for mine with the eye squinting (Max)he is FHV positive and after extensive testing it was confirmed by the Veterinary opthamologist and addressed,I try to prevent flare ups ( Llysine is great support)as best I can ,he also has a little tear duct issue ,daily Optixcare lube helps tremendously...... everyone got screwed up with my running out of lysine,,going in for surgery and forgetting all about it.....believe it or not since I've resumed the Lysine even Timmy's loss of Iris pigment seems to be coming back- I hear this is pretty much unheard of but his eye is actually turning back to green!!!Between fervent prayer and lysine support something truly amazing is happening

Graycie has been through every trst,,xrays sent out to radiology specialists as well- since shes impossible to medicate we tried steroid injection with good result- lasted 3 months no coughing.

So yes- thousands of dollars later I believe nothing has been overlooked and all possible tests performed to exclude cancer-we do the best we can until we can't

Can I suggest you keep a daily chart that you can check off when you medicate each cat(& yourself!!!!especially yourself)this way there's no way you can miss a dose or overdose..... there's just too much going on to mentally keep track of and it would be much easier if you logged in thst you administer "x" at "x" time for "x" cat- perhaps stick it on the refrigerator or where you keep the meds

That is great the lysine works! I’m glad the steroid helps Graycie.

Wizard probably had feline herpes but when I gave him lysine he vomited so I just stopped. He could never take any pills hardly he was Fiv plus but he lived until he was like 22.

It’s not a matter of writing a dose or anything like that. I’m dosing myself & correcting constantly throughout the day and if you’re using an insulin pump the pump keeps a full record of it all.

Basal insulin on a pump is given automatically according to what I programmed into it so there’s no way you can forget to do it like you can with MDI and I have done that which is a nightmare. There are lots of problems pumps of course, they can malfunction, and people have been overdosed due to technical errors, pump malfunctions etc.

Once or twice, I have forgotten to bolus when I ate, but my Dexcom usually warns me, if it’s accurate, which it’s not always, because my blood sugar will start going up a lot and then I check the pump and I can see if I bolused or not.

Sometimes I will do injections though, and I don’t always record them on the pump in order to record it on the pump. You have to bolus it disconnected and then it records it.

Sometimes I just inject a bolus or correction, and I don’t want to use the insulin in the pump to do that and then I write it down in my phone, so I know when I can dose again. I have set an insulin duration of four hours into my pump. So once I bolus, I cannot bolus again for four hours. I cannot eat again, etc. it’s very rigid because if you bolus and you wait half an hour and bolus again it’s called stacking insulin. The insulin builds up, and you can get the same effect as an overdose. You then have two waves of insulin hitting you like a brick wall and it can be scary.

The worst point is at two hours when most of the insulins will reach their peak effectiveness. that’s when you are in most danger. It also depends on your activity levels and things like that. I can’t do any type of real activity usually until about two or three hours after I eat. otherwise I have to be very careful. In fact, I rarely do any type of heavy duty activity anymore because it’s just a nightmare even going for a walk is a hassle.

The problem is there’s no way to avoid possible mistakes because when you’re tired, you can still make mistakes and forget things, and even though the pump keeps a record and tells you things, you still also have to be looking at it and aware of what you’re doing. It’s much easier to make mistakes when you’re on MDI. And I did that twice where I injected my basal I think instead the fast acting which was a bit of a nightmare.

It actually makes what I’m doing with the cats look relatively easy although we know it’s NOT easy by any means because I’m dealing with cats & trying to remember it all

I did exactly that- I got a little calendar notebook and I wrote down when I started medicating Xena, Quinn, and cinnamon. So hopefully that’ll help a little bit. I know I should’ve started doing that right away, but I’ve been too exhausted, and stressed out and it’s the same problem that if I don’t write it down and know exactly when stuff happens and I’m still going to make mistakes.

The other variables are terrible , for instance earlier, I left the clindamycin in the pill pocket on the plate for cinnamon on the floor. Then I was reading and doing stuff for a long time. I went back to check about two hours ago and it was eaten/ gone, but I have no clue who ate it or when. Maybe it was a mouse

I am assuming it was cinnamon because Xena will not eat the pill pockets and neither will Quinn. But I don’t know when he ate so I don’t know when his next and should be.

It’s awful to be trying to do this. I was so tired that I think I was just reading and I fell asleep so I didn’t monitor things as closely as I had planned. And I didn’t put any new food out at some point. I noticed Xena was sitting on Quinn‘s bed and Quinn I think we’re sitting on the floor or Xena‘s bed he was gone. I didn’t feed them yet. So zena was pretty hungry because he was nagging me more.


So now I’m supposed to give Zena his pill at around 8 AM. Quinn has to have his pill at the same time- I think- I don’t know if I’ve lost track now. And I have no clue when to give cinnamon the next pill or if he’ll even eat it because they just ate a bunch.

Cinn cannot be touched by anybody I would not be able to give him an injection.

And now because of not remembering if I dosed Xena and not knowing when cinnamon ate his dose and now not remembering for sure when Quinn took his, I have cats on three different schedules. Yesterday I got them all on the same schedule finally and now it’s all messed up again.

So I’m just resetting everything for 8 AM tomorrow and it’s gonna have to be OK. I need to get some sleep at a relatively normal time for me or my brain is going to be fried forever.

I don’t even remember now when I gave everybody their Zofran. I know Quinn and Zena. I gave it around the time I got up which I think was like 5 to 6 PM. Cinn finally ate the Zofran… I think because he was starving, but I don’t know when he ate it, that was upstairs. So I’ll just give him his tomorrow in the early evening again if he will eat it.

Another thing which I do for myself is I have pill containers, I used to do that for my cats and I think maybe I should try that now- problem is it can still get confusing depending on when they take the pill making sure you know which day it was in and everything and if there are two doses, usually I have the containers that have two weeks with the days. Not am & pm.

I wonder if there’s a medication log chart pad that I can purchase somewhere it probably cost a fortune though so I’ll just use the calendar and write the time next to the dose. It’s tiny so I don’t know if there’s going to be room. I hope I don’t have to get a bigger calendar.

 

[Kwik]

Any kind of log book would work ( one line each med per day- log time ,dose)
Each page front & back each cat( should cover 4 weeks)

Eg:
Robot or human?

 

[Meowmee]

Any kind of log book would work ( one line each med per day- log time ,dose)
Each page front & back each cat( should cover 4 weeks)

Eg:
Robot or human?

Thanks!
I’m using calendars that I got for free and just a piece of paper for each day. I think that should do it.

Unfortunately, now there is another disaster.
I gave Quinn his pill and Xena got his pills of C & Zofran. I did not give Quinn Zofran because I wanted him to get the C first. cinnamon has not eaten his C in the pill pocket.

When I gave Quinn his pill, it was in cream cheese this time, and unfortunately, he bit down on the capsule and was salivating and some of the capsule, just a tiny end came out. I waited a while to make sure he didn’t vomit up the rest, about 1/2 hour, and decided I would wait to give him the Zofran when I came home. I had to go out for a while.

When I came home he had vomited all clear liquid on the floor and I could see remnants of the medication in there.

I forgot to mention, or maybe I did that he seemed nauseous last 2 times I think, I gave him a C pill, and he has not eaten really since last night that I know of. I’m wondering if it’s the clindamycin?

I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is just impossible. I don’t really see how I’m gonna get through ever fully medicating him, and cinnamon at all. I should’ve given him the Zofran first on a lick treat on his mouth, but I thought it was within 24 hours.

None of them will eat the licky treats that I got from Costco, which are Cat it Brand. And Quinn won’t eat any of his licky or other treats anymore at all. He won’t eat at all now. I think he’s so nauseous from the medication or it could be something else so now I’m really worried.

I don’t understand why in the past 50 years of all of these innovations there STILL is NO way to medicate your cat without making them nauseous and terrified. And torturing yourself and your cats.
This is a billions $ industry, but apart from convenia, which those of us who have had terrible experiences with it know that it is extremely dangerous, there is nothing better than what there was years ago… in fact, some of the new drugs are worse, such as telazol.

I don’t know what to do now- I’m scared to even rub the Zofran on his mouth with a licky treat because he’s terrified of me giving him anything and he won’t eat anything now.

I called Dvm to cancel cinn’s appointment, and explained I’m having trouble medicating everybody, except Zena, but this was before Quinn threw up, etc. it was late in the day and she did not call me back. I was asking again about possible topical clindamycin for Quinn.

Supposedly she will call me tomorrow. I asked them for her to call in the afternoon since I’m basically nocturnal now. But now I feel like I have to stay up all night again, in case she decides to call me in the morning, this is untenable. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m extremely upset about all of this. There is no real support from these people anymore.

 

[Kwik]

Upset stomach( nausea & vomiting )is surely a probable and common side effect of the clindamyacin- Better to give the Zofran first ,then the clindamyacin with food( again,spread out the anti biotic 24hrs)

You're doing the best you can do and medicating Cinnamin is a precautionary measure,right?

Does Zena seem to be improving? How's his breathing ....how many days has it been since you began treatment?

 

[Kwik]

You know ,I feel exactly as you do because sadly in this darn greedy world there is huge profit in treatment and even if a "cure" is found I'm not sure it would see the light of day ....

In this day and age are we really to believe there is no cure for cancer?As a cancer patient myself having personally been through hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatments ( which btw I often question if the treatment is any better than the disease) all I can really see is big pharma,hand in hand with Govt.....it's no different with Veterinary medicines

I can't take anti- biotics,they make me sicker than a dog and rarely do I ever finish a Rx.... most of the time I opt out and let nature take its course

Yes,you would think there'd be easier methods by now,especially with animals - the only options are to do the best you can or hospitalized for drip treatment ( pnuemonia)

 

[Meowmee]

Upset stomach( nausea & vomiting )is surely a probable and common side effect of the clindamyacin- Better to give the Zofran first ,then the clindamyacin with food( again,spread out the anti biotic 24hrs)

You're doing the best you can do and medicating Cinnamin is a precautionary measure,right?

Does Zena seem to be improving? How's his breathing ....how many days has it been since you began treatment?

Thanks thank goodness I managed to get quinnamon( quinn & Cinn), to eat the c in a whole tuna treat. Zena started the 23 but had to restart so it is day 10 or so maybe. I have to check my calendars. Quinn and cinn started the 29th but have not been consistent Especially Cinn.

Xena is doing great. He really never had any sign of pneumonia like Merlin did. he hasn’t had any symptoms of it, he just had the hind legs and spinning. I mean he was doing the coughing around the time Merlin got sick. I think he was actually even doing it before that too. And I just thought they all had an allergy or something. I thought they were sneezing because I’ve never had a cat who coughed before- even Sybil who had asthma never coughed. She just had attacks where she would breathe rapidly.

The x-ray or the radiologist anyway said they thought he has pneumonia with a suspicious area where there could be parasitic buildup. And he may have underlying asthma too.

Xena is the easy one, easy to pill and he’s over the hiccup of the nausea that he had for the first two or three days now I just popped the pills in his mouth in margarine or a pill pocket and he’s eating and behaving normally. I think he was a little bit lethargic for the first four days or so, but he’s pretty much back to normal now fingers crossed.

And no more sign of his hind legs, being paralyzed or spinning, circling etc. so I guess we can assume from it that he did indeed have toxoplasmosis. Although the doc said it’s very hard to test for anyway so we’re not going to test for it. Merlin necropsy confirmed that.

I didn’t do the PCR for $498! because I assumed he just has that and we will find out from the treatment, etc. when he gets another x-ray whether it worked or not. Hundreds of dollars saved that I’m now spending on medication and treats to get them to take the medication.

Xena, fingers crossed, has not coughed at all since even two weeks before he went to the ER. Whereas Quinn was coughing and sneezing the day before yesterday. Quinn is not vomiting now, but he still looks like he doesn’t feel good after he ate his clindamycin today so he is the one I’m really worried about swear to God I’m not gonna stay on this earth anymore if he dies.

cinnamon is not showing any symptoms at all. He had some vomiting. I think two weeks before Xena went to the ER so it’s prophylactic for him.

recommendation for Xena because of him being so stressed out at the hospital was to treat at home. But to come back if he starts to get worse. obviously I’ve never going back to the f troop place, but if he had shown any signs of getting any worse or breathing problems, I would bring him somewhere else else.

Quinn is not in any type of critical state, and I don’t think even if I wanted to anyone would treat him for this in a hospital. I mean, I suppose if someone can come to the house to inject that would be the only possibility at this point, but I don’t think that’s even possible because as I said, my cats run away whenever anybody comes over. They’re scared of everybody, I don’t think I could even inject him and certainly no one else can. If he goes to the doctor though he’s much more subdued, but I don’t know how he would be doing that twice a day and I can’t bring him there twice a day to get injected.

I don’t understand how three of my cats can get this rare condition, if it’s so rare. Merlin was the only one that seemed to have some underlying health condition going on, which was cancer, but even that was not fully confirmed on the necropsy because they did no histopathology on what they thought was a tumor outside of his pancreas.

 

[Meowmee]

You know ,I feel exactly as you do because sadly in this darn greedy world there is huge profit in treatment and even if a "cure" is found I'm not sure it would see the light of day ....

In this day and age are we really to believe there is no cure for cancer?As a cancer patient myself having personally been through hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatments ( which btw I often question if the treatment is any better than the disease) all I can really see is big pharma,hand in hand with Govt.....it's no different with Veterinary medicines

I can't take anti- biotics,they make me sicker than a dog and rarely do I ever finish a Rx.... most of the time I opt out and let nature take its course

Yes,you would think there'd be easier methods by now,especially with animals - the only options are to do the best you can or hospitalized for drip treatment ( pnuemonia)

I think, though there are a lot of better treatments for cancer now than they used to be hopefully there is going to be some breakthrough. All the cancer are different, but they’re starting to use immune treatments now for it and some people are living longer and even surviving or being completely cured. I think if there were a cure it would be available, but it would be so expensive that most of us won’t be able to afford it even with insurance unless you get assistance. My father had treatment for prostate cancer and he had radiation treatment and hormonal treatment. Unfortunately, the radiation treatment caused him to have a lot of damage to his bowels and stuff like that. It was really awful. But he was cured of it thank goodness.

am glad you made it through that, so awful.

Yep, you’re very right about that the pharma and the disease treatments/ and even many docs hospitals etc. they charge as much money as they can for anything that works for anything. It needs to be stopped.
Yeah, Xena and Quinn are not sick enough to be in the hospital. I asked the crazy ER Xena went to if they could give him some IV before he left because he would at least have a loading dose and he said they only have the intravenous and they couldn’t do that or something I don’t know. Basically, after he tried to bite somebody supposedly which was their fault. Most likely they were just gonna send them home with no charge. That’s when I made the decision that I would have to take the risk to sedate him because I knew what happened with his legs and spinning it had to be bad.

When I asked that doctor why it takes so long to treat this, he was a bit taken aback, he didn’t know, he started talking about how people that get treated for severe advanced Lyme disease have picc Ports put in, but they don’t do that for cats. I would never do that for a cat anyway probably. I have read they are dangerous in people because people can get infections and problems from them. There was a woman who died who did that for Lyme disease and I think it turned out she didn’t even have Lyme disease. Her doctor was charged.

 

[Meowmee]

Upset stomach( nausea & vomiting )is surely a probable and common side effect of the clindamyacin- Better to give the Zofran first ,then the clindamyacin with food( again,spread out the anti biotic 24hrs)

You're doing the best you can do and medicating Cinnamin is a precautionary measure,right?

Does Zena seem to be improving? How's his breathing ....how many days has it been since you began treatment?

Quinn is not vomiting now but he still looks like he feels nauseous to me. I gave him the Zofran at about 4:30 AM yesterday so I’m gonna do it a little earlier today. I’m definitely before the next dose of clindamycin. Hopefully he will eat it again I have to go out and buy more of that Salmon and some other fish so I’ll just buy a few of those.

he had an incident a few years ago, where he was vomiting a lot and I took him to my former dvm. They did some tests and then gave him a shot cerenia, and something else and then he was OK. But he does have problems with nausea and sometimes the furballs and the constipation sometimes.

 

[Kwik]

I think, though there are a lot of better treatments for cancer now than they used to be hopefully there is going to be some breakthrough. All the cancer are different, but they’re starting to use immune treatments now for it and some people are living longer and even surviving or being completely cured. I think if there were a cure it would be available, but it would be so expensive that most of us won’t be able to afford it even with insurance unless you get assistance. My father had treatment for prostate cancer and he had radiation treatment and hormonal treatment. Unfortunately, the radiation treatment caused him to have a lot of damage to his bowels and stuff like that. It was really awful. But he was cured of it thank goodness.

am glad you made it through that, so awful.

Yep, you’re very right about that the pharma and the disease treatments/ and even many docs hospitals etc. they charge as much money as they can for anything that works for anything. It needs to be stopped.
Yeah, Xena and Quinn are not sick enough to be in the hospital. I asked the crazy ER Xena went to if they could give him some IV before he left because he would at least have a loading dose and he said they only have the intravenous and they couldn’t do that or something I don’t know. Basically, after he tried to bite somebody supposedly which was their fault. Most likely they were just gonna send them home with no charge. That’s when I made the decision that I would have to take the risk to sedate him because I knew what happened with his legs and spinning it had to be bad.

When I asked that doctor why it takes so long to treat this, he was a bit taken aback, he didn’t know, he started talking about how people that get treated for severe advanced Lyme disease have picc Ports put in, but they don’t do that for cats. I would never do that for a cat anyway probably. I have read they are dangerous in people because people can get infections and problems from them. There was a woman who died who did that for Lyme disease and I think it turned out she didn’t even have Lyme disease. Her doctor was charged.
[/delight!

I had a pic line,should've done it first time around but opted not to and didn't want a traditional port either - after collapsing my veins from chemo there wasn't really much choice second time around......everything has its pros & cons,we have many difficult choices sometimes for ourselves and our beloved pets......we can only do what we can and whst we feel is in everyone's best interest,a challenging journey

 

[Meowmee]

Yes have to do what it takes.

When I was in icu at diagnosis in dka, they tried to change one of my iv, I had two, one for fluids and insulin etc. and another for potassium iv due to severely low potassium. One woman was furious at me because she could not get a new line in my arm, i told her to stop etc. then about an hour later, some huge guy who was obviously a surgeon and some other nurse came charging in my room and we’re gonna try to do it again. I started swearing at them and told them to leave which they did.

I didn’t want the potassium anymore because it was burning my freaking arm off whenever they gave it to me.

One of my doctors and another person came in and started trying to tell me they were gonna put a central line in, but they needed me to agree, I said f you and no way. You try puttj g his in your arm etc and see what it feels like. so they left. And later I think someone put some other iv line in somewhere else I think at that point my end though who was treating me told them that it doesn’t matter that the potassium is low that’s what happens and it’s going to resolve when the DKA resolves which it did.

I already knew from my mother that Central lines are very dangerous. When she had one put in when she was in a coma after having a ruptured brain aneurysm, they punctured her lung, and it was all downhill from there. It was all downhill because they never told us we could have her flown by copter to another hospital where her life could’ve been saved by surgeon, we talked to later.

so sometimes by refusing, and telling them off, you can save your own life too.

Knowledge is power, but you also have to be able to stand up to these people.

I have more updates on the medication etc. I’ll write that in another message here.

in addition, after I was released for the second time from the hospital, because the first time they released me with a DVT and I had to go back the next morning. It’s a miracle I survived it. I had a blood clot in my arm from that idiot trying to put the IV line in my left arm who I told to go away, in addition to the one in my leg. I actually had two in my legs, but one of them did not show up till later and not on ultrasound because it had passed btt they did us, and I was already on warfarin at that point. But inr had gone down and I had to do lovenox shots for a few days till it came back up.

it took a week back in the hospital to get my INR up to the right level for an active dvt blood clot. I had all sorts of other serious complications. It was like a medieval horror show. I was walking with a walker in the hospital because the clot was so bad I couldn’t walk on it and it was very painful. They had me on heavy duty painkillers, but I only took them every 12 hours or so because I’m very sensitive to them.

fun fact- due to that woman messing up my vein on my left arm they now can’t get any blood out of my left arm from damage to the vein, and they can only use my right arm for bw.

 

[Meowmee]

Update is losta stuff-

1- I talked to DVM finally she said she tried to call me the day before that but for some reason, there was no message. She said she’s going to investigate getting injection for Quinn for me to do at home, but she had to talk to the office manager and I have not heard back from her. I have been very exhausted and sleeping at crazy hours so I’m going to call again tomorrow before they close and see what happened. She said it’s probably going to be very expensive.

2- she said the thing is between 2 to 4 weeks, depending on whether the cat is still symptomatic. so for Zena only one more week I think he’s not symptomatic anymore. Quinn unfortunately about three more weeks he was coughing about four days ago.
For Cinn only two weeks because he’s not symptomatic.

I read an article in the medical journal which I’m going to link here. It did say, however, though if the cat has a serious pulmonary infection, like Merlin had that some of these cats were not only clindamycin, but other drugs and they were on them for way more than four weeks.

So I’m going to keep zena on it for four weeks, he is very easy to medicate. Quinn is going to be really hard as usual, but I’m gonna keep them on for four weeks at least and then do the x-rays for him and Xena.

Sin is not taking it all the time so it’s gonna be two weeks and then we just do a check up and x-ray. He has to be sedated anyway. Although he doesn’t seem to be symptomatic, he was having tearing in his eye, which seems to be better after a few, not consistent doses of C.

We had more mishaps with the medication. I finally got them to eat it in the special tuna treat which is made by a company called reveal. I think it’s a little piece of fish. Quinn and Cinn both ate it in the tuna for almost 2 days. But then cinn decided he won’t eat it in that anymore. I tried giving him the pill pocket in the crunchy thing glued together, and he spit it out. I tried leaving him in the room all night with a pill pocket on the fish which I had done the night before, but he won’t eat it anymore. today I gave him some in just the regular wet cat food and he ate it, but it took him two different tries, and I had to put more cat food in the dish .

We almost had someone eating someone else’s dose. Xena is trying to eat cinnamons in the fish and Quinns.. I forgot yesterday. I was so exhausted. Actually, it was this morning and I all of a sudden saw that Quinn had been eating cinnamon dose in fish which cinn had started to eat finally, after he had already had his in the fish!

I panicked and called one of the er Dvm. She asked his weight and said don’t worry about it. Just skip the next dose so we’re skipping tonight for Quinn and he won’t get any until around 8 AM tomorrow. I hope this is right. Because the total dose for a cat that weighs about 14 pounds is 140 mg.

She also said that as long as they are getting a little bit of it, at least it’ll probably still help fight the toxo which is a protozoan parasite.
I am still in a very deep grief on many levels from the loss of Merlin and blame myself that I entrusted his health to those idiots, that I didn’t get him to a better hospital much sooner and get him on the medication because maybe he could’ve survived and could’ve saved his life. And that I let him suffer so much when he was obviously going to die that last night . I miss him so much

Zena seems to be doing very well no symptoms he’s running around and he’s eating pretty normally. I’m upset now that he’s been labeled as an aggressive cat who has to be sedated to redo his x-ray. Because he’s so easy to medicate. I don’t understand what they did to him, but I think that it was because of all the stress and whatever they did, that’s why that happened. I was wondering if I should ask if I could give him some of anxiety and see how he does on an office visit and then bring him back for sedated x-ray if they can’t do it.

Once a cat has been labeled aggressive in a record it’s like a black mark against them forever.

 

[Meowmee]

In addition, I figured out what was going on with the liquid clindamycin dosing issues.

That 25 MG is three Ml dose 2x day. But the 75mg is a different concentration and is 75mg = 5ml. Kind of crazy so the first pharmacist at the front was wrong because he thought it was going to be one ML. I hope he’s not really a pharmacist!

Here is a link for that medical journal or book which talks about treatment for severe cases where the cat has a serious case of pneumonia from toxoplasmosis and Disseminated infection.

 

[Meowmee]

I can’t find the specific one I mentioned but I believe it is the second link here for an entire textbook which is amazing. I believe the book was linked in an article I read, but I don’t seem to have emailed it to myself. I’m going to have to search further. I believe in that article it said that they treated for several weeks with clindamycin and in addition they treated with pyrimethamine for about 4 weeks. I can’t remember if it was consecutive now. Hopefully, I can find it again. Another thing I think that same article said was that they gave some cats sugar pills instead of clindamycin and they had a better outcome than clindamycin maybe but they didn’t seem to be sure – pretty crazy huh?

In addition here is a very interesting case of a cat who had isolated toxo pneumonia which caused partial collapse of the left lung lobe, he had surgery and was given I believe four weeks of clindamycin plus painkillers and he’s OK. A year after the treatment he also like Merlin was not immune compromised.

Pulmonary mass‐like lesion caused by Toxoplasma gondii in a domestic shorthair cat

A 2‐year‐old male neutered domestic shorthair cat underwent investigations for acute onset of lethargy, hyporexia, and cough. Computed tomography of the thorax identified a large mass‐like lesion in the left cranial lung lobe and ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I can’t upload the pdf I downloaded for free, of the journal/ book. Here is a link where you can download it hopefully when you sign up there.

I don’t understand what happened because I always email all the stuff to myself and I can’t find any of it. I’m very stressed out and that happens to me anyway a lot too. I usually do screenshots of important things, but I don’t seem to have done it of that article where they talked about specific treatments for toxo pneumonia in cats.


Greene’s Infectious Diseases of the Dog & Cat

Infectious diseases of the dog and cat : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xxiii, 971 p. : 27 cm

archive.org

Here are some screenshots I just did of some of the aspects of the drugs that can treat parasites. But it’s not the article where I read the specific treatments for toxo pneumonia in cats.

 

[Meowmee]

I think this here is a link for the greene’s diseases in cats & dogs where you can download for free. I would like to buy a hard copy but it’s above $100 at amazon.

https://ebin.pub/greenes-infectious-diseases-of-the-dog-and-cat-fifthnbsped-0323509347-9780323509343.html

 

[Kwik]

I think this here is a link for the greene’s diseases in cats & dogs where you can download for free. I would like to buy a hard copy but it’s above $100 at amazon.

https://ebin.pub/greenes-infectious-diseases-of-the-dog-and-cat-fifthnbsped-0323509347-9780323509343.html

For me personally I've got an entire library's worth plus a storage unit of all my medical books so I really don't do any online anything except TCS,I'm an old fashioned hard copy reader,I might look something up if it's escaped my own memory.... If I happen to be on my computer I will sometimes read some medical info PDFs for updates depending on the source but first scan everything through my security programs before opening- mostly Im on my phone so can't even see anything to read anyway,lol I really am not a computer friendly person ...at all

One reliable source imo is NLM that is available to the public online ....at least it's verified biomedical info and data science..... Rather than varying opinions and different research studies

Check around the Internet for used books,since you use online resources so much no doubt you can find the books you're interested in for much less like Thrift books,Book Depository ,World of Books and many more

 

[Meowmee]

For me personally I've got an entire library's worth plus a storage unit of all my medical books so I really don't do any online anything except TCS,I'm an old fashioned hard copy reader,I might look something up if it's escaped my own memory.... If I happen to be on my computer I will sometimes read some medical info PDFs for updates depending on the source but first scan everything through my security programs before opening- mostly Im on my phone so can't even see anything to read anyway,lol I really am not a computer friendly person ...at all

One reliable source imo is NLM that is available to the public online ....at least it's verified biomedical info and data science..... Rather than varying opinions and different research studies

Check around the Internet for used books,since you use online resources so much no doubt you can find the books you're interested in for much less like Thrift books,Book Depository ,World of Books and many more

Thanks

I do most of my reading online now and I have way too many books. We don’t have room anymore plus, I can usually find things for free. I think most of the things I’m reading are verified data from medical journals and sources like that. Of course not everything is written in stone. I’m going to look at that website. I think I have read things there before too.

I have purchased a lot of books in the past at places like that so I’m going to look for it there too to see if I can find it cheaper.

The thing I find frustrating about reading online, especially if it’s a PDF and or scroll through it and go back-and-forth and iit becomes extremely frustrating for me. I get kind of disoriented.

I’m usually on tablet or my computer it’s better on my laptop, but I tend to read more on my iPad but the touch screen in combination with a lot of different websites can be very difficult and have a lot of problems like for this website. Dictation here and elsewhere can be very bad. This website in particular is the worst one. As mentioned I have spent over 1/2 hr or more re editing a post only to have it not saved!
Are you a scientist/ doc? You seem to have a lot of knowledge etc.

I found the article or at least a section of it that was posted at science Direct. I’m going to link and post that section here regarding the various treatments, using clindamycin and other drugs for toxoplasmosis pneumonia and severe disseminated infections.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/clindamycin

Susan Foster, in August's Consultations in Feline Internal Medicine, Volume 7, 2016
Clindamycin


Clindamycin is the most commonly used first-line drug for feline toxoplasmosis. Clindamycin targets ribosomes in the plastid (apicoplast),54,55 but the effect of the drug is delayed because complete loss of plastid DNA is required. Given the relatively high copy number of DNA in each plastid, this could take several parasite divisions to occur.54 Thus the antimicrobial effect of clindamycin is delayed in vitrofor 1 to 3 days.56
The recommended dose of clindamycin is 10 to 12.5 mg/kg every 12 hours by mouth (PO) for 4 weeks14,42 with each oral dose followed by a food or water swallow to prevent possible esophagitis.57 If oral dosing is not possible, clindamycin can be given subcutaneously at the same dose. It is reported that clinical signs of systemic illness, including inappetence, fever, and hyperesthesia, usually begin to resolve within 24 to 48 hours of clindamycin therapy, and active chorioretinitis generally subsides within 1 week.13 Lower motor neuron deficits and muscle atrophy may take longer (e.g., weeks) to resolve in animals with polymyositis, and neurologic deficits may not totally resolve because of permanent damage.13 It is recommended that cats with anterior uveitis should be treated with clindamycin and concurrent topical, oral, or injectable corticosteroids to avoid potential adverse sequelae, such as lens luxation and glaucoma. Although anti-inflammatory doses of glucocorticoidsare not likely to exacerbate systemic disease, topical glucocorticoid therapy is still preferable.13
Despite being widely accepted, these recommendations warrant further analysis. A study of clindamycin efficacy in an experimental model of acute feline toxoplasmosis with the ME49 strain demonstrated that there was increased morbidity and mortality from hepatitis and interstitial pneumonia in both clindamycin treatment groups (12.5 mg/kg every 12 hours PO or 11 mg/kg every 24 hours PO) compared with both control groups (placebo once or twice daily PO).9Possible causes for this were discussed, including the potential for clindamycin to inhibit phagocyte action.9 In addition, the report noted that clindamycin is more suppressive than curative for T. gondii, concentrations found to be inhibitory in vitromay not be achieved in vivo, and the antimicrobial effect of clindamycin is delayed.9It is also reported that clindamycin is not effective against extracellular tachyzoites.58
Although it has been stated that disease-enhancing effects of clindamycin have not been substantiated in naturally infected cats,13 a number of cats in the literature have died (or been euthanized due to clinical deterioration) despite clindamycin treatment.16,28,36,40 Assessment of the efficacy of clindamycin in clinical cases is thus difficult, especially without strain and virulence data. Clindamycin was reported to be efficacious in one North American case study20; however, the selection criteria for that study included response to appropriate treatment or histopathologic confirmation, and the only case with definite histologic confirmation died without treatment; another cat with possible tachyzoites on histopathology responded poorly to clindamycin treatment. Davidson and colleagues9 specifically commented that any clinical improvement in chorioretinitis in pet cats treated with clindamycin should be interpreted cautiously and not used as de facto evidence of toxoplasmosis. However, cats with uveitis and either T. gondii-specific antibodies (IgG, IgM, or both) in aqueous humor (GWC greater than 1) or serum were shown to be statistically more likely to have a positive therapeutic response if treated with clindamycin and glucocorticoids than if treated with glucocorticoids alone.52,53
A review of 10 cases of pulmonary toxoplasmosis revealed that only one cat survived long-term with sole clindamycin therapy, and no cats survived with clindamycin and sulfonamide treatment with or without trimethoprim.16 The only clindamycin combination therapy that was successful was clindamycin and pyrimethamine.16 The two cats that received this combination had both been receiving cyclosporine. One cat was treated with clindamycin and pyrimethamine for 16 days followed by trimethoprim sulfonamide and pyrimethamine for 26 days32and the other with clindamycin for 10 weeks (2 weeks past radiographic resolution) and pyrimethamine for 4 weeks (K. Briscoe, personal communication); the latter cat was still alive at the time of writing, 3.5 years after successful treatment (see Figure 6-1). One cannot draw any real conclusions from such a limited number of cases. It may be that cats with pulmonary toxoplasmosis and critical presentation have a very poor prognosis regardless of which antimicrobial agent is used, or that the cats which survived had a less virulent strain or more chronic disease course. However, it could also be that clindamycin alone is poorly efficacious and possibly even detrimental in these situations as was demonstrated in the experimental study.9 As such, based on the clinical cases reported and the experimental and theoretical data regarding clindamycin, it is difficult to recommend clindamycin alone in critical cases of pulmonary toxoplasmosis or acute disseminated toxoplasmosis. Clindamycin and pyrimethamine may be a better option, especially in cats immunosuppressed with cyclosporine.

 

[Meowmee]

The thing that’s really scaring me from what I have read probably and yet another article is that even if your cat overcomes an infection, they’re always going to be susceptible to this coming out again from the cysts and muscle tissues and elsewhere. So it feels like this is going to be a never-ending nightmare that I’m always always going to have to worry about.

Most of the time they had specific conditions and we knew eventually they would die from that. But if it was something they were cured from that was it….it wasn’t something that you had to keep worrying about constantly like this.

It might be in the excerpt I pasted above here – that says that the case study of that cat who was not immunocompromised above. They said that they thought the cat could’ve had a false negative test for FIV or FELV or something like that. I wonder if that could’ve been the case with Merlin. However, he was tested several times for fiv/ felv. First when I TNR him, again when I brought him inside and he was isolated before being allowed to be around the other cats, which was only Quinn at that point. And again when he first went to the regular dvm with pneumonia etc. he had what looked like a bite on him, which I think happened in an interaction between him and Fred, who was FIv plus. That happens at least six months before all of this or longer. So you would’ve think it would’ve shown up in the most recent test if it had been transmitted.

in addition, another theory suggested in the same article was that the cat had had an infection. The cyst went into the muscle tissue or elsewhere, and then they were brought out again by some immune reaction to causes severe infection.

In addition, there’s still otherwise no explanation really what happened to him except that maybe his cancer if he did have cancer, which I’m never gonna know now because they didn’t do that testing on the necropsy, affected his immune system.

For instance, Wizard, who was fiv plus. And who was an indoor outdoor cat for most of his life and who hunted and caught mice never had a toxoplasmosis infection at all or of any significance, and neither did any of my numerous indoor outdoor cats who had other health conditions like cancer.

So why did a large, relatively healthy cat like Merlin who was only about 7, die so rapidly from this rare event while Wizard who was relatively healthy until his later years lived until 22 or so. Of course, Merlin never got the right medications, and was never diagnosed, and he was given the sedation, which never should’ve happened.

And why now do at least two more also likely have t gondii pneumonia and Zena also has likely cns. Merlin’s brain was affected to they said but he had no symptoms of that.

 

[Meowmee]

I think, though there are a lot of better treatments for cancer now than they used to be hopefully there is going to be some breakthrough. All the cancer are different, but they’re starting to use immune treatments now for it and some people are living longer and even surviving or being completely cured. I think if there were a cure it would be available, but it would be so expensive that most of us won’t be able to afford it even with insurance unless you get assistance. My father had treatment for prostate cancer and he had radiation treatment and hormonal treatment. Unfortunately, the radiation treatment caused him to have a lot of damage to his bowels and stuff like that. It was really awful. But he was cured of it thank goodness.

am glad you made it through that, so awful.

Yep, you’re very right about that the pharma and the disease treatments/ and even many docs hospitals etc. they charge as much money as they can for anything that works for anything. It needs to be stopped.
Yeah, Xena and Quinn are not sick enough to be in the hospital. I asked the crazy ER Xena went to if they could give him some IV before he left because he would at least have a loading dose and he said they only have the intravenous and they couldn’t do that or something I don’t know. Basically, after he tried to bite somebody supposedly which was their fault. Most likely they were just gonna send them home with no charge. That’s when I made the decision that I would have to take the risk to sedate him because I knew what happened with his legs and spinning it had to be bad.

When I asked that doctor why it takes so long to treat this, he was a bit taken aback, he didn’t know, he started talking about how people that get treated for severe advanced Lyme disease have picc Ports put in, but they don’t do that for cats. I would never do that for a cat anyway probably. I have read they are dangerous in people because people can get infections and problems from them. There was a woman who died who did that for Lyme disease and I think it turned out she didn’t even have Lyme disease. Her doctor was charged.

I have to add here that the f troop hospital doc told me they did not have iv clindamycin in stock that night which is weird. When I went back there to get cerenia pills for Xena, someone else was given clindamycin pills for their cat being discharged, the recep mentioned that he had been given a shot of cerenia and he should take the pills now.

I’m just wondering why they didn’t do that for Xena knowing that it causes nausea.

The owner of that cat was upset because their cat only ate dry food and they didn’t know how they were going to get him to eat medication in dry food. They wanted liquid, but the receptionist at the front said they didn’t have liquid in stock.

When I took zena and quinn to the new place- doc said they didn’t have clindamycin pills or liquid either, otherwise I would’ve gotten pills from them and maybe liquid just in case… the pharmacy didn’t have it. She said I could get the liquid at chewy. later she told me place the order at chewy and give the hospital info and they would send a new rx to chewy.

It turned out the pharmacy did not have enough pills for the huge prescription which was written in Quinn’s name that was for all three. So they only gave me four pills I think and I had to go back that Friday fortunately, they got it all in on that Friday. By then I had started medicating Quinn as well, and I was worried once again about running out.

 

[Meowmee]

Update: Quinn continues to take the C in fish treats easily, fingers crossed. Zofran is still hard. I have to sneak up on him and wipe it on his mouth in the lick treat.

Xena is now a piece of cake for everything but he continues to try to eat Cinn’s medication and food and so does Quinn.

Cinnamon has become difficult and would not eat his medication this morning. I had to lock him in the bedroom with it all day while I slept. He also was giving me a hard time this evening, he only ate a little and I shut him in the bedroom again, but when I went there just now he had eaten it fortunately.

I think cinn only has two days left. I have to double check. I decided to medicate Zena and Quinn for the full four weeks since Zena has confirmed pneumonia and Quinn was coughing too. I am afraid to say anything else about it lest I jinx everything. Just hope my boys will be OK after all of this and we don’t have to continually worry about them dying from toxo pneumonia etc.

I continue to mourn Merlin very deeply, I am thinking about him all the time and missing him so much. I think now that he could’ve survived this had he been properly diagnosed, had not been sedated and had he been given the proper medication in time etc. or medication’s. Also if dvm had not ignored me telling them about what I thought was his sneezing early on, I even recall showing them a video long before he had pneumonia and they blew me off.
Ultimately I blame myself also because I didn’t switch to a better doctor a long time ago. After the only really good doctor I had retired. And did not get him right away to a better hospital if there even is one near me.

After I get them all through this, I’m going to revisit making complaints and even a small claims case against some of the Dvm involved in what happened to Merlin. And possibly for Zena too regarding what happened at f troop.

Here is a link for the Reveal treats…I found them at Walmart for $2.49

Reveal Pet Food | Cat Treats | Whole Salmon Loin

Reveal Whole Salmon Loin | A high quality treat - serve whole as a special snack or shred and sprinkle over food. Your cat won't enough of them.

revealpetfood.com

Another thing I forgot to mention was I think all three cats now have soft stool. Xena always has that, although he was briefly cured on the home cooked food for a few months, and Cinn has it once in a while, but Quinn usually has regular poops which are on the dry side. I assume this is from the antibiotic, and I’m just wondering if I should risk giving them a probiotic because I’ve had very bad results with that in the past. Or if I should just wait and let them recover naturally when the meds are done.