Phinehas and Malachi health issues - confirmed diagnoses: herpes virus in the eye

I ended up calling Adobe and they wanted me to bring him in for an emergency recheck (which was double the cost of a regular appointment) since they were concerned about the blood but were apparently all booked up with scheduled appointments.
His eye looks terrible, you can't even see his eye because the membrane is so swollen. They put an e-collar on him because perhaps he had scratched his eye which caused the bleeding. This seems like a really serious case of who-knows-what (originally they thought it was chlamydia, but now they're not so sure and they're treating him for everything), so now we're going to also be putting the poor thing on 2 types of anti-viral medications (which also costs a fortune :( ) along with everything else he's taking. I have to pick those up at a compounding (??) pharmacy tomorrow. They also wanted me to schedule a recheck for an animal eye specialist since we couldn't even tell today if his eye is damaged. :( God, I swear I feel like a made a huge mistake bringing him home. I just wanted to do something nice for my Phinehas since I'm gone all day and orientals are such social cats and crave companionship. I thought it would be easier when I go on vacation for him to have a buddy. I just don't understand why this is all happening...:( :(

Oh my, this is all so sad. I don't even know what to say except I do know how it feels when everything goes wrong at once. :(

Hang in there, when this is all a distant memory you can go back to just having fun with your babies.

{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}

Karen, I'm shocked to hear this latest bad news.:( After I talked to you last night I felt sure that his eyes would get better very quickly.

In the back of my mind I was thinking that if you had to bring him in again I sure hoped that you wouldn't have to be referred to an eye specialist too.:( I went through this with Ziggy and I had to travel quite a ways and it was very expensive. Luckily her eye turned out to be just fine.

I'm surprised to hear that you have to go to a compounding pharmacy to pick up his meds. I've had meds compounded at Adobe before so I thought that they could compound just about everything.

I'm so sorry that everything is going wrong all at once with your cats.:( I can relate to this because I went through so many things with poor Starr. Things will eventually get better. I'll call you tomorrow. Take care. (((HUGS)))

I just wanted to give you an update on both Malachi and Phinehas. I went over for a short visit today and Phinehas is pretty much back to his normal self.:) He did have a some clear discharge which then turned into a white pale yellow color in his left eye. Hopefully it's just some residual effects from his URI.

Malachi looked miserable.:( He's being kept away from Phinehas in the bathroom. He's a conehead now and both of his eyes are now infected. He most likely scratched one of his eyes because it's so red looking but at least it's open now. I gave Karen my smallest cat sack that I can't use any more so that it'll be easier for her to give him his eye drops and other meds. I helped her give him a pill and his eyes drops and he's very feisty and wiggly so the cat sack helped a lot.

Malachi has an appointment on Mon. with an eye specialist to make sure that his very bad eye isn't damaged from scratching. Hopefully it's okay. Depending on the diagnosis, he may not have to take all of the meds that she now has for him. She'll also ask about Phinehas's eye and if she still needs to keep them separated or for how long.

I sure hope that this is the end of bad health issues for these two. I'll be taking care of them in early March while Karen's in Ireland for 10 days. She sure deserves to have a nice relaxing vacation. Please keep both of them in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks.:)

I also forgot to mention, that Karen took Phinehas's pulse rate 3 times while I was there and you take it for 6 seconds and then add a zero on the end of your count. It was 9, 10, and then 11 which would be 90,100, and then 110 for his pulse rate. Hopefully this is within the normal range. She said it was between 180 and 200 when he was at the vets the other day.

Thanky our for the update- I am glad to hear at least Phinehas is better- however poor Malachi sounds miserable.
Paws and fingers keep being crossed for these two sweet boys.

Thanks all for keeping up with this thread! :o I did have an appointment with the eye specialist today and I ended up bringing Phinehas in too, because his left eye is starting to look like Malachi's did in the beginning, so things got worse since KAK's visit. *sigh* The doctor was able to confirm a diagnoses, which does give peace of mind. It turns out that Malachi and Phinehas both have the herpes virus in the eye, but at least I don't have to keep them seperated anymomre. :( Malachi has it worse than Phinehas, but since we caught Phinehas early I hope we can nip his in the bud. At least I can discontinue a couple of the meds for Malachi since we know what it is he has. Phinehas has his own set of eye drops now. I really really hope this will be the end of the vet visits. As it is, I already have too much month left at the end of my money with all the visits in the last two weeks alone. I'm closing in on $2K right now which is very very stressful. I've had to most of it on CC since I just don't have the funds to manage this. :( Please pray that with this confirmed diagnoses and set of meds my boys will be on the mend and I can finally try and de-stress myself!

I know how you feel. I've almost got $1,500 in vet bills paid off now. It's only taken me 3 months to do so :( I hope you and your boys can take a break from the vet for awhile. I'm sending your two precious boys all my good thoughts and hugs!!

wolflady - have a look at the first link here. The second is more for special stuff, but it won't hurt to hold on to the link!

http://www.carecredit.com/vetmed/whycc.html

www.imom.org

Karen, I'm so sorry to hear this.:( I know that the herpes eye virus will come out when cats are stressed and unfortunately there's no known cure for it. Many people have been using L-Lysine and this helps to keep it under control. I know that you have the L-lysine gel in the tube so I'd start giving this to both cats. They also make a powder form that could probably be added to canned food.

I copied this from a link about herpes eye infections in cats:
Just wondering if it is safe for a cat to be on
L-lysine for a long time or perhaps for the rest
of her life? I have tried to take her off it and
her runny eye and sneezing seems to come back, so
she really needs to be on this. I would rather
this than antibiotics that she has tried without
success.

Thank you.

Tina B
Vancouver Island, BC, Canada

L-lysine is a naturally occurring amino acid. It inhibits the replication of herpes virus.

In cats, herpes virus is not sexually transmitted. It is a highly contagious and extremely common cause of upper respiratory infections, or URIs. URIs are marked by eye discharge, squinting, sneezing, and and sinus congestion.

Almost every cat on earth is infected with feline herpes virus. Infection is lifelong. Feline herpes virus does not spread to people.

Most cats are able to suppress herpes virus with their immune systems. However, some cats suffer chronic or recurrent URIs as a consequence of infection with herpes virus. These cats may benefit from dietary supplementation with L-lysine.

L-lysine is a natural part of proteins. Adverse effects from long-term administration of L-lysine are extremely unlikely. If you feel that your cat is benefiting from the amino acid, I see nothing wrong with giving it for long periods. It is certainly safer than long-term antibiotics. And, since antibiotics do not treat herpes virus, L-lysine may also be more effective.

Hopefully their eyes will clear up quickly and I'm glad that they can be reunitied again.:) I'll keep both of them in my thoughts and prayers. You take care too. (((HUGS)))

I went by Karen's place today and I dropped off some left over L-lysine that I had been using on Pearl. Malachi eye's look so much better.:) One of Phinehas's eyes looks bad and was almost closed.:( It didn't look very bad on Sat. so it sure has gotten worse.

Malachi is now out of his e-collar and he's so happy to be able to be with Phinehas again.:) They were both cuddling together in the bed that I had given to Karen. She put a heating pad in the bottom of it and they love it.:) Karen also received some L-lysine in powder form to try on them so hopefully both of them will get better and feel better soon.:)

Goodness, I'm sorry to read this but now that you know what's going on, hopefully things will improve quickly. Prayers are continuing for you all. Keep the faythe. :love:

I know you're concerned about $$, but you might want to consider a third eyelid flap on a particularly bad eye/s. Simply, the cat is knocked out and the eyelids are pulled together to be a natural bandage on the eye/s. 3 eyes have been saved with it here because they were all better when the TEF was released.

Polly's herpes never clears up--just better and worse. Everybody else's here DID go away completely. Her son Domino keeps a bit of his occasionally, so it seems to be a family thing.

Wow, the cats are really testing you, eh? ;) Nakita also had the herpes virus but never a full outbreak.

The best thing you can do is keep the stress to a minimum,add the l-lysine to the food, and feed a high quality diet.

We just had to take Gigi to the vet. She had impacted anal glands that needed to be expressed. Nothing like having a cattitude calico with full anal glands! I'm sure it was the highlight of the vet's morning (Gigi came out looking like she was violated). :p

Sending vibes that the cats make a full recovery. Hang in there, Karen.

(((hugs)))