Cyst shots

[ganime]

Hello everybody,

I guess this concerns the human health more than cat health but since it's health-related i am posting under this forum.

When I got Karamel first,I took him to the vet for vaccine against Rabbies (we have occasional cases of Rabbies here in Turkey from time to time) and Cyst shot. I though that was all for the first year. But later I learned from my sister-in-law madeguada that she takes her cats every 3 months for the cyst shot because the vet told her it needs to be repeated every 3 months. Well i didn't know that. I made a search in a Turkish cat forum and learned that it's common practice to give the kitties a shot every 3 months. But some people argued that these shots are not vaccines that will protect from the illnes but just parasite-killers. So we are injecting pesticides to our cats without even knowing if they have the parasite. They said there is an orally applicable form of the medicine etc. etc.

My question is: is this the regular practice in other countries and since my Karamel never goes out and has no contact with other cats, does he need to be given this cyst shot? I take care not to feed him raw or unreliable meat products so he has no way of contracting the disease.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Tubby & Peanut's Mom]

Sorry, ganmine. I can't be of any help because I have no idea what Cyst shots are. Sounds like it might be something that is done in Turkey but not here, which might mean that it really isn't necessary to be done. Except there must be a reason they recommend it. Maybe you guys have some kind of bug over there that we don't have here and that's why your kitties need this.

One thing you might want to try doing is calling different vets and getting different opinions. Maybe it would only be necessary once or twice a year instead of 4 times a year.

I really don't know. Hopefully someone else around here will know more about this. Hope your beautiful Karamel kitty is doing good!

[Uabassoon]

I've never heard of this cyst shot either. I agree with Tubby and Peanut's Mom. You should call around and ask different vets.