Cat Snot-- what would you do?

[sassafras]

Originally Posted by AllisonPitbullLvr

I'm resigned at this point to the fact that she's done this every day for the past six years despite previous intervention so even a couple months without it would be heavenly! It's definitely worth a shot since we've tried everything else. Any potential complications from this?

Other than anesthesia, as long as you are gentle I haven't seen any problems. We use a small red rubber catheter and they are soft and flexible enough that they don't even seem to cause any irritation. But, we've only done a few of them.

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

I'll run it by the doctors on Monday and see what they think. Thanks!

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

Just vacuumed my couch for the third time this week and there was snot all over it and all over the wall behind it. I'm going to have to repaint. Sigh.

At what point is it fair to consider euthanasia? It's just so frustrating!

[Xandra]

I don't think it will ever be "fair" to euthanize an animal for an issue like that.

It's totally normal for a person to want a nice house and it's tiresome to be forever cleaning up animal mess. You just have to weigh the situation. How much do you care about the cat, what is its quality of life like, how much do you care about your house, how much money you want to put into vet care and house restoration. It's sad and a shame but after 6 years of chronic infection and what sounds like a good bit of effort and money put into the cat's recovery, you wouldn't get any heat from me for euthanizing.

[*blackrose]

Have you tried any kind of nebulization? Or even maybe steroids? I'm sure if the vets thought it would help they would have tried it before, but it may not hurt asking about.

Originally Posted by Xandra

It's totally normal for a person to want a nice house and it's tiresome to be forever cleaning up animal mess. You just have to weigh the situation. How much do you care about the cat, what is its quality of life like, how much do you care about your house, how much money you want to put into vet care and house restoration. It's sad and a shame but after 6 years of chronic infection and what sounds like a good bit of effort and money put into the cat's recovery, you wouldn't get any heat from me for euthanizing.

^ This.

My mom euthanized her kitty of five years after a two year battle of chronic UTIs. Medications were almost impossible to get down the cat, it was stressing her out, after being on the antibiotics the infection would just come back, diet didn't help, extra litterboxes didn't help, confining her stressed her out and she was urinating ALL OVER the house.

Mom finally decided to euthanize, because Pheobe was destroying the house and making it unsanitary to live in. Was it "fair"? Maybe not. But Pheobe had a good life and mom did her best to get her better. Rehoming her or making her an outdoor cat wasn't an option due to Pheobe's temperament issues with people and hatred of other cats. She was loved, she was well taken care of, and she had a good life. I couldn't fault my mom for the decision she made.

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

A vet very early on tried steroid drops and that was her undoing-- steroids are the absolute wrong thing to use as they suppress the immune system and allow the virus to really take hold. Ahh, hindsight.

The thing is, if she was urinating all over instead of snotting, and if I had tried as many things for that as I have for her URI, this wouldn't be such a hard decision and I would have euthanized already.

Thanks for the support. In all likelihood, we'll end up just carrying on. It's what we've been doing all along but it's just getting ridiculous. I'm frustrated and tired of having to check for snot before I sit down, go to bed, invite people over, etc.