Why are there very few medicines to alleviate the symptoms of upper respiratory infections (URIs) in cats? I can’t find any with which we are familiar. The advice is to wipe the eyes with most cotton balls as often as required, and keep your cat hydrated and warm. Is there much else we can do? Yes, we can use a steam vaporizer to alleviate breathing problems but I don’t know how effective that is. We put our cat in the bathroom when we shower but that might upset him.
Cat URIs can be nasty and cause a lot of discomfort. Wouldn’t it be nice to make our cat feel a bit better? When people get colds we head for the medicine cabinet and pain killers, drying up medicines to stop the flow of water from our nose and eyes, medicines to alleviate sinus pain. There are a myriad of medicines to make us feel a bit better while our body attacks the virus and returns us to good health again.
It is possible to give pain killing pills to cats but it has to be done under veterinary supervision and with extreme care. I sense it is too dangerous to administer pain killers over quite a long period which you’ll have to do for a cat with a nasty URI. The only over-the-counter analgesic that a cat owner can buy and administer themselves is aspirin but the dosage is vitally important to avoid hurting a cat and it can only administered every three days as I understand it.
People can buy over-the-counter medicines for colds for their own use. Why can’t we do the same thing for cats? Is it only because the cat is sensitive to medicines or is it at least partly because the drug companies work with veterinarians to encourage cat owners to take their cat to the vet?
There is one “medicine” that might help alleviate the symptoms of a cat cold: L-lysine. It is an amino acid which reduces the amount of arginine in the cat. Arginine is used by the feline herpes virus to replicate.
I have just noticed that swollen nasal membranes can be shrunk using (in the US) Afrin Children’s Strength Nose Drops.
There are homeopathic medicines which may do something but I don’t believe they are much good which is why I have not included them as a viable solution.
The reason why I wrote this is because my cat is very ill and it is possibly a viral infection and I’d like to make him feel better. We are going to the vet for the fourth time this afternoon.
Thank you Dee. It makes me feel better. I have felt awful all day with worry.
Sounds like Herpes, Michael.
The only test that really may need to be done is a chest xray to determine whether he has mid/lower lung congestion which would mean that a bacterial infection hopped onboard(unlikely). In that case or not, antibiotics won’t hurt him at all.
Oh, No! I’m doubling again!
I got my BIG container from Amazon too – pretty cheap really for the good it does.
For a while, I thought that I would never get what was going on here under control. Antibiotics didn’t do much good. I do have to say that a warm (not cool) vaporizer with a tad of mentholatum gel worked miracles too. I set it up in my kitchen (not an enclosed area) and it just emitted a soft mist throughout the kitchen and livingroom. Even I felt the benefit.
Like you mentioned, there are other products that will help with symptoms and are safe for cats that I won’t relay here, but only ask the following about Charlie:
Was/is he febrile?
Did you hear congestion (hold his midsection to your ear and listen for crackling or wheezing); and if so, was it upper or lower?
Is he snotty?
Are his eyes watering?
All above are symptoms that can be treated to bring relief to your cat.
I got my BIG container from Amazon too – pretty cheap really for the good it does.
For a while, I thought that I would never get what was going on here under control. Antibiotics didn’t do much good. I do have to say that a warm (not cool) vaporizer with a tad of mentholatum gel worked miracles too. I set it up in my kitchen (not an enclosed area) and it just emitted a soft mist throughout the kitchen and livingroom. Even I felt the benefit.
Like you mentioned, there are other products that will help with symptoms and are safe for cats that I won’t relay here, but only ask the following about Charlie:
Was/is he febrile?
Did you hear congestion (hold his midsection to your ear and listen for crackling or wheezing); and if so, was it upper or lower?
Is he snotty?
Are his eyes watering?
All above are symptoms that can be treated to bring relief to your cat.
Thanks a lot Ahsan, I think he is dying. I don’t even think he has a viral infection. I think he has cancer. But let’s wait and see.