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

**wolflady** · 01-29-2009, 02:22 PM

We just got back from the vet and they think he could possibly have a stress induced colitis!! I've never heard of such a thing, so I hope it's not permanent. It's strange because Phinehas has never had diarrhea before and all of a sudden he does now. The stool sample I brought in showed blood and mucous, but no bacteria that would indicated an infection. They ended up giving him fluids, an anti vomit injection and an injection of anti-biotics. They also took some blood so we can start looking into his stinky mouth issue. I have antibiotics "the pink stuff" which I am to start him on this evening since he's supposed to get it twice a day and he's already had the injection. Poor guy. He was so good. He just purred on the table and let the techs poke and prod him as they needed.
The vet didn't see any concern about needing to seperate Phinehas and Malachi, so Sreedhar has dropped me off here at work and will go home and let Phinehas back in the bathroom with the baby. Cuddling should be ok

**Barbara** · 01-29-2009, 02:30 PM

So it's a colitis- and we know our babies are sensitive - even if he likes Malachi it's still a change. And he is already adjusting to this change so I hope after the antibiotics he'll be fine.
Filou had an infection with diarrhoea 4 weeks ago and he is just fine now.
Make sure Phinehas gets very light and high quality food now. Filou started with a food that contained only chicken, chicken broth and 1% of rice and that was a good start for him.
He sends purrs to Phinehas.

**wolflady** · 01-29-2009, 02:35 PM

That's true. I didn't get the sense he was stressed, but maybe he was just overly excited which is a form of stress, right? Thanks for the tip on the food Barbara.

I'm glad Filou is doing better too!

**hugs**

**krazyaboutkatz** · 01-29-2009, 09:43 PM

Poor Phinehas.

I sure hope he'll start feeling better soon. Has he been eating Malachi's food? Since it's a little different from his regular Royal Canin maybe this is what caused his diarrhea. I'll call you tonight to check on him. Lots of prayers and positive thoughts are being sent his way.

**wolflady** · 01-29-2009, 11:34 PM

Thanks KAK. I certainly hope he gets to feeling better. He's still pretty much the same. Very lethargic with diarrhea. He loves the red bed you brought over, so that's good.

I'll give him his first dose of meds tomorrow and hopefully it will help him to feel better. I'll be sure to keep you posted. Please continue to send some healing vibes for Phinehas.

**wolflady** · 01-30-2009, 10:58 AM

No improvement with Phinehas this morning. He's still not eating and still has the bloody diarrhea.

I tried enticing him with some wet food, but he wasn't interested. His medicine says "give with food", but if he's not eating...what do you do? I ended up giving him a dose this morning, because I want to get him on the antibiotics. He wasn't too happy about it and probably half of it ended up on the floor.

I'm just so disappointed. Maybe bringing this little kitty home was a mistake. Phinehas was just fine....never any diarrhea or illness from the day I first brought him nome, and now if this colitis is going to be a permanent thing...it's going to be a nightmare. It's my fault he's suffering now.

I don't want to keep Phinehas cooped up in the bathroom, but it's the only room we have to isolate the kitties. My place is small and I don't want to put him in any carpeted rooms since he's leaving diarrhea smears wherever he sits down.

I've been wiping his bottom, but it's not really helping since it seems he has it leaking out constantly.

I swear, I must have bad karma following me around since I never seem to catch a break. My husband is going away for 3-6 months to work a contract job since he hasn't been able to find anything out here for 4 months and we thought adding a friend to keep Phinehas company would be a good thing. Introductions went well, but I guess there was a catch to all that. Why couldn't it have just gone fine and stayed fine?

I wish the universe would just give me a break! I'm so frustrated these days.

Prayers for Phinehas are appreciated.

**krazyaboutkatz** · 01-30-2009, 11:42 AM

Karen, Things will get better just have faith.

If you still want to borrow the cage that I have please let me know. It's large enough for a small litter box and a bed too. I sure hope that Phinehas will start improving soon. Prayers and positive thoughts are still being sent his way.

**krazyaboutkatz** · 02-16-2009, 10:33 PM

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.

**Medusa** · 02-17-2009, 05:31 AM

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.

**critters** · 02-18-2009, 05:44 AM

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.

**Russian Blue** · 02-18-2009, 06:47 PM

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).