Cat Snot-- what would you do?

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

I have two cats.
One of them, my female, has the worst and most chronic case of URI and of the vets she has been examined by have seen. (Three different clinics, likely 6 vets).

She constantly (as in every day) sneezes out massive globs of mucus. During the sneezing fits, she seems uncomfortable/perhaps painful and is afraid. When she is stuffed up prior to a sneezing fit, she is defensive (rightfully so) and afraid.

The longer this goes on, the more she is starting to be reclusive. She is afraid of the dogs (Obi will trot over to her during a sneezing fit to see what's going on) and so she often goes through long periods where she only comes up from the basement at night when they're in our bedroom or during the day when Obi is at work with me.

We've tried long antibiotic trial after long antibiotic trial and none have worked for longer than she is on them, several caused her to vomit and she gets very stressed being restrained and pilled (again, rightfully so-- she must feel like I'm trying to smother her). We recently did an 8 week course of antibiotics and an antiviral which helped somewhat while she was on the meds (it thinned out the mucus) but as soon as they were done, the issue was back. She's on immune supplements and lysine. They don't make a difference.

So thats why this sucks for her. She is physically uncomfortable and emotionally afraid.

The problem on my, admittedly, very selfish end is, there is dried snot everywhere. It's crusted on to the walls and nothing gets it off. Its on the furniture. It's on the bathroom sink. It's on the kitchen counters. It's on my bed and my pillow. It's on the rugs and the floor. On some surfaces, it never comes off once it's dried. I'm not squeamish but it's pretty gross laying my head down on a cat booger.

The problem is, besides this she is a healthy cat. Her bloodwork is great. She's a playmate and friend for my other cat. I NEVER would euthanize an animal for convenience but I'm not sure where to go from here.

I'm tired of cleaning up massive gobs of cat snot. Thoughts? Ideas?



As I type this, she just hopped up on the couch beside me and sneezed on my phone.
Sigh.

 

[Kilter]

The first thing that comes to mind is diet - raw diet would create less snot in short. Less snot is good, right? It's harder to convert some cats but it would be worth it I think.

Second would be Chinese/herbal/alternative medicine, to treat the cause vs. the issues. I remember at the kennel one dog was on a 'reduce mucus' herbal formula from the alternative vet...

You could do eucalyptus and keep her confined to one room or something otherwise, to reduce the clean up (and have spray and wipes around when she's out so when you hear sneezing can get it before it dries to cement).

 

[JessLough]

What is she fed?

 

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

I should also say, I work at a vet clinic and have access to lots of resources, info, etc.

She currently eats hills t/d. She's been on "premium" high protein, no grain foods in the past and it didn't make a difference. I won't do raw for a few reasons, but one current reason being that I'm pregnant.

 

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

Also, I don't want to confine her. She does that enough on her own. Also, One of the biggest reasons for me struggling with this is because she is a companion to my other cat.

 

[sassafras]

Ugh chronic snotty nose in cats. HATE. FRUSTRATING.

If she were a person, she'd be doing nasal flushes/neti pots as part of her treatment - obviously not practical in cats at home. We've done a few sedated nasal flushes in really stubborn cases and it's not a permanent fix but IME has lasted around 4-6 months. I had some good success with acupuncture in one patient and if I knew more about herbs I think I probably could have done more for him.

 

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

Hmmm... I hadn't considered acupuncture or laser. The one thing we haven't tried yet.

I asked about sedating and flushing but none of my doctors will think it will be very effective because we can't get to the upper sinuses.

I'm going to look in to acupuncture/laser though.

Six years later and I'm still amazed at the size of the globs that come out of her tiny nostrils.

 

[sassafras]

I asked about sedating and flushing but none of my doctors will think it will be very effective because we can't get to the upper sinuses.

If your expectations are reasonable (that is, it's potentially a couple of times a year thing, not a permanent fix) then you might be happy with it. If you've been impressed by what she can sneeze out on her own, you'd be amazed at the crap that comes out with a flush. It's disgusting.

 

[JessLough]

Until you find a more long-term solution, you could always throw her in the bathroom in a carrier with a hot shower running for 10-15 minutes every now and then to help loosen stuff up. That's what we always did for the cats from the shelter. At least it would give her some relief for the time being.

 

[AllisonPitbullLvr]

If your expectations are reasonable (that is, it's potentially a couple of times a year thing, not a permanent fix) then you might be happy with it. If you've been impressed by what she can sneeze out on her own, you'd be amazed at the crap that comes out with a flush. It's disgusting.

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?

She usually hangs out in the bathroom with me in the mornings anyways as the dogs are still in bed and this is our "girl time". We've also put a humidifier in "her" room in the basement.

 

[sassafras]

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.

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.

 

[Justinmarkob]

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.

Allison! We have an identical cat!! Please reply if you have any updates on treating this chronic sneezing/snoting. Thank you!

 

[Shevaun]

I had to join this forum after reading this discussion to tell you that I cured my cats constant snot through the use of homeopathy. I went through all what you are talking about with the ruined furniture and paintwork, failed antibiotics, vomiting after antibiotics, etc.

I used silicea 30c and aconite 30c twice daily for two weeks. I actually read online about which homeopathic treatments I could use and tried several to see which one would work. I'm in a lucky position that I live in Germany where homeopathy originated from and it's very popular here. The medicines were very inexpensive and incredibly effective. I also put my cat in his carrier 3 times a day for 15 mins and put a pot of boiling salt water in front of the carrier to clear out his nose. I put a towel over the carrier and bowl so it was a very intensive steam treatment, he didn't like it at first and I had to lift the towel every few minutes to give him fresh air but he got used to it and it worked.

Homeopathy WORKS. No not believe what big pharma says! Try it yourself, read up on it, get the different treatments and try each one at home. Some work, some don't work but at the end of the day you'll find the right one.

 

[Shevaun]

Also, please consider putting your cats on a raw diet. It's been their diet for the past 50,000 years while bland, low-quality, grain filled cat food has been marketed to us for only the last 50 years. Cats need raw, fresh meat in order to be healthy. If you're worried about bacteria and viruses on the meat then just freeze it first and then thaw. I was pregnant and feeding my cats raw all the time and I was perfectly fine.

 

[Justinmarkob]

Also, please consider putting your cats on a raw diet. It's been their diet for the past 50,000 years while bland, low-quality, grain filled cat food has been marketed to us for only the last 50 years. Cats need raw, fresh meat in order to be healthy. If you're worried about bacteria and viruses on the meat then just freeze it first and then thaw. I was pregnant and feeding my cats raw all the time and I was perfectly fine.

Shevaun! Thank you so much for the reply. We have done steam treatment with no luck. I have mixed so many things over the past few years, so I wanted to A / B split test your suggestion. For the past two weeks I have used raw diet (Darwin meals) and silicea 30c (ONE silicea ball TWICE a day in the raw food).

No improvement. I will try the aconite 30c next. Did you ever speak with homeopathic vet to see if one or the other is a treatment for this "chronic sinusitis" or combo only?

Thanks again. Just want my kitty to stop the runny eyes and bouts of 10+ sneezes in a row