Those Mighty Ear Mites

Ear mites in cats are a problem throughout the world. They occur in all climates and both wet and dry conditions. The reason being is that the inner ear maintains a perfect environment for the ear mites in terms of moisture, cellular debris, and inaccessibility to the cat trying to scratch them out. When I was a boy, my mother use to sit and dig the crusty brown debris from our cats' ears thinking that would solve the ear mite problems. It probably got most of them, but a few certainly remained and were able enough to produce more. The treatments forty years ago were not as effective either and re-infestation commonly occurred, to the frustration of any cat owner.

Ear mites can be detected empirically by just looking in your cat's ears and seeing a brown crusting matter building up in them. Rabbits get an even more dramatic accumulation of crust and their ear mite debris comes out in large chunks: www.ocw.tufts.edu/data/5/215910/49239_medium.jpg Treatment of the ear mites is now simpler than ever. A one time filling of the ears with a product containing ivermectin and the ear mites all die off and go away. You don't even clean the ears prior to application of the medication, as the debris holds the medication in the ears longer. The ears self-clean in time by lateral outward migration of the replicating cells within the ears. Re-infestation is possible, but the ivermectin stays in the cat's system long enough to kill off any early migrants that may be planning a comeback. See: www.petville.com/pet_community/images/cat_ear_mite.jpg

Also see a closeup of an ear mite www.televets.com/upload/images/articles/0vr181-6-47.jpg

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Chronic Diseases in Cats

A friend recently remarked that my cat "Bunny" looked sad all the time because his eyes are sometimes half stuck shut from his chronic conjunctivitis. Surprisingly, he is one of the happiest cats I have ever known. Bunny has an unusual third eyelid inflammation problem that has never cleared up despite all known treatments. He has had anti-inflammatory eye drops, antibiotic eye drops, and even antiviral eye drops. I have found that just cleaning around his eyes every day works the best as his condition waxes and wanes daily and it most certainly is related to allergies.

Chronic conditions can be frustrating as they require chronic treatment. A great hospital cat we had for many years, named Sabrina, had chronic diarrhea and her owner gave her up because of the difficulties of dealing with runny stools every day. We took Sabrina in and made her our hospital cat. After a few months of dietary trials, we came up with the right food to control and manage her loose defecation. She worked out perfectly as a hospital cat and self-assigned herself the role of hostess. She would wait on the porch for each appointment to arrive, then walk down the front steps and sidewalk to greet each client. Then she would walk them to the front door with yowls of welcome and offer to let them pat her while they waited in the waiting room. She was an amazing cat and enjoyed her years with us, as much as we enjoyed our years with her.

So, a chronic condition is not the end of a pet's ownership. Sometimes you just have to accept that a condition is chronic and may need to be managed on going. Some of the best cats in the world have chronic medical conditions. Don't give up on them, as they can bring you love and happiness like you might never imagine.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Feline Aggression or What To Do With The King of Beasts

Cats can be very aggressive. The feline order is not called The King of Beasts for nothing! House cats though are supposed to be pets and not top line predators within the household. Most aggression is between one cat and the other cats in the same home. Sometimes though, cats can become aggressive towards their owners and this usually brings a not-so-happy ending. I have had to euthanize several cats during my veterinary career because they could not be controlled and their owners could not stand to live in continuous fear of them.

On the milder side, there are new products available to help with intra-household cat to cat aggression problems. My new favorite is "Let's Be Friends Flower Essences" which is a flower extract that falls into the holistic category of medications. Apparently it works fairly well and keeps the peace among the household tribe. Other medications, usually tranquilizers, like valium, prozac, and acepromazine can be used if this gentler level of calming the cats doesn't work. The bottom line though is a cat is meant to bring happiness to your home. If an aggression problem exists in any form, you should see your local veterinarian for help.

Thank you again to Kristal Oz for submitting the picture above showing her cat Yogi who had an aggression problem, but was forgiven, and is doing much better on Floral Essences.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Allergic to Cats? Here's the Solution.

Cats produce the most allergenic substance known to man. Some people think they are allergic to cats, but it is actually the dried saliva on the cat's fur that people are allergic to. When cats groom themselves, an invisible layer of their saliva remains on their fur. This dried saliva is a proteinaceous substance that reacts strongly with the human immune system, causing severe allergic reactions. So a person is not allergic to a cat, just it's saliva.

The "Solution" to this problem is a solution of acetylpromazine and water. One ten milligram tablet of ace mixed with one ounce of water is the solution. Putting six drops of this remedy on a cat's food daily causes subtle changes in the character of the saliva to occur. This change in the saliva makes a cat less allergenic to it's owner. The change is an improvement, but it is an effect, and not a one hundred percent cure. So a person mildly allergic to cats will see good results with this solution.

Many Thanks to Kristal Oz in California for the photo of Madame Frou Frou!

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Hyperthyroidism. The perfect disease to have?

In my feline specialty practices, we had weekly training meetings to teach our staff people excellence in medical knowledge and customer service. One Wednesday, I was doing a lecture on Feline Hyperthyroidism, and one of my staff people remarked at the end of it, "That sounds like the perfect disease to have". From her perspective, it would be, since she was extremely overweight. She weighed three hundred and fifty pounds.

What this staff person liked about hyperthyroidism though, was that if you have it, you can eat more and more and still lose weight. That is the pathognomonic symptom for feline hyperthyroidism. A client comes in and says, "You know, it's the strangest thing, my cat keeps eating more and more, yet he is losing weight!" Surely it is hyperthyroidism. We always do the tests though to confirm.

The cause of feline hyperthyroidism is not exactly known, though two theories predominate. One is the excess of iodine in commercial cat foods that contain a large percentage of ocean fish products in them. The other is that the left recurrent jugular artery beats against the left thyroid gland in a cat and causes it to become tumified. This theory is supported by the fact that the left thyroid gland in a cat is more often the one causing hyperthyroidism than is the right.

Treatment of this condition has three choices. First, is suppressing the thyroid function in the cat with a drug called Methimazole. Second, is surgical removal of the tumified and hyperfunctioning thyroid gland. Third, and most popular today, is radioactive destruction of the thyroid tissues with Iodine 131, which is given by injection and requires a two week stay at a veterinary hospital.

Hyperthyroidism is most commonly seen in older cats as a lifetime of thyroid gland tumification finally results in too much thyroxine entering a cat's blood stream. The condition must be treated, though it is not an emergency, and cats live on with the condition even if it is not treated. The veterinary community still researches why feline hyperthyroidism is on the rise in cats. My personal thinking is that it is not rising in the cat population, but instead, it is becoming more accurately diagnosed. The first veterinarian I worked for as a boy rarely did blood panels and tests on his patients. Today, forty years later, in-house diagnostics are very sophisticated, and Vet Labs are even more sophisticated still. Blood tests and blood panels are a daily routine in modern day practice.

The diseases have always been there, now we are finally diagnosing and treating them correctly.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Feline Infectious Peritonitis

Feline Infectious Peritonitis is one of the strangest diseases in the animal kingdom. Caused by the feline enteric coronavirus, the disease is one of conditions more than of infection. F.I.P. appears as a disease when cat environmental conditions are that of over-crowding. A lone cat is highly unlikely to get FIP. A cat, especially a kitten, in a house of forty cats though, can very likely develop the signs of FIP infection. The most pronounced of which is an abdomen full of serum fluid that makes the belly noticeably large.

Testing for the disease is controversial in that it is an antibody titer measurement versus a positive or negative test result. So, a cat may show positive for the FIP virus, but never develop signs or symptoms of the disease. The level of the titer is fairly indicative of the cat's long term prognosis. A low titer (1:100) is evidence of exposure to the virus, but not a state of illness. A high titer (1:1600) or higher is a test result that indicates the long term prognosis may not be good. Again, the vagaries of the diagnostic results are what annoys so many veterinarians.

Treatment of FIP is purely symptomatic and is largely steroidal antiinflammatory drugs like prednisilone and sometimes an antibiotic. It is that cat's own immune system that is the problem in that the antigen-antibody complexes formed by the bodies' defensive system are actually the elements that form the granulomatous inclusions that accumulate in the abdominal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and intestines.

Prevention of FIP remains controversial too, in that the vaccine is not one hundred percent effective. It is a nasal vaccine given intranasally to create IgA type antibodies versus IgG antibodies that would result if the vaccine were given by injection. The IgA type antibodies remain in the mucus membrane surfaces of the nose, which is the primary point of entry for the FIP virus. How efficacious the vaccine is remains uncertain. The general consensus is it may be sixty to ninety percent effective.

So here we have a disease that originates from a common intestinal virus in cats, only becomes a disease when the environmental or immunological conditions are right, has no clear diagnostic tests, and no real treatment. And the disease has no analog in other species. What is a person to do? Mainly hope your cat doesn't get the disease. Avoiding crowded conditions is the most important factor in preventing cats from getting FIP, as any owner of a cattery clearly knows.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Life Extension

On this 40th Anniversary of Mankind Landing on the Moon, we should appreciate that most of our knowledge from medical science came from animal studies. It was on animals of various species that the Caloric Restriction with Optimal Nutrition diet proved and quantified that a calorie restricted diet dramatically extends life in all species. Get a copy of my book today and see how easy it is to do the diet and start living dramatically longer and healthier!

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.lifeextensionbooks.net/

Do Rodent Ulcers Have Anything To Do With Rodents?

If your cat is diagnosed with Rodent Ulcers, you are hearing a colloquial term that comes from the era of common misunderstanding, but the terms of which survive today. Rodent ulcers have nothing to do with rodents. It was thought that the large excoriating lesions on the upper lips of a cat were from it having caught some disease from a mouse. They were wrong, but the diagnostic label survives even today. The real diagnosis is Eosinophilic Granuloma Complex, or EGC for short. It is a quasi-autoimmune disease that comes from the bodies' reaction to transitional cells at the muco-cutaneous junction of the lips. At this transition point, the cells are not skin or mucus membrane, and so the immune system of a cat thinks they are foreign cells and need to be destroyed. Unfortunately there is no good cure for this condition, but it is treatable with ongoing use of corticosteroids like prednisilone pills and Depo-Medrol (methylprednisilone) injections.
Your cat should be given the least amount of these medications that control the symptoms, as corticosteroids suppress the immune system and compromise your cat's health in many ways. The alternative is to not treat the ulcers, which is worse for your cat, as their lips can roll outwards from the lesions and permanent damage to the lips can result. No other disease resembles rodent ulcers and they can be diagnosed empirically by a physical exam alone. Cats don't get to catch mice any more, but a disease blaming the mouse for it's symptoms remains.
Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Kidney Failure in Cats

As commonly as people die of heart failure, cats die of kidney failure. It is the number one cause of death in cats as they grow older. The number two cause is cancer.
Cats are a desert animal, and because of this arid adaptation, their kidneys over-concentrate their urine throughout their lifetime. This excessive effort by the kidneys comes with a cost and that cost is the decline and loss of functional nephrons in the kidney parencyma. No loss of function is noticed physiologically until over seventy five percent of the kidney function is gone. The first stage of compensation by the patient is excessive water drinking. An owner notices the excess water consumption and usually sees the litter box filling up faster too, especially with clumping litter. The next stage is that the cat loses weight and eventually fails and becomes dehydrated. A visit to the veterinarian comes next.
Blood tests measuring the blood urea nitrogen and creatinine will reveal insufficient kidney function in the cat. Primary treatment includes initial diuresis and a change to a low protein diet like the Science Diet K/D. Home care fluid therapy may need to be included as an ongoing treatment to keep the cat flushed of lethal toxins that build up without extra fluid intake. Ultimately the cat will succumb to it's failing kidneys, but I have seen many do well for years on prescription diets and home care subcutaneous isotonic fluid therapy. A cat will live for more than twenty years if it doesn't get kidney failure or cancer. In my practice, I saw many cats over twenty years old and one that even made it to twenty nine!
Dr. Doug Ikeler www.drdougikeler.com

Cat Litter Box Problems

Cat litter box problems are some of the most commonly seen complaints in a feline specialty practice. The dividing line for diagnosis comes with the first question: Is it horizontal or vertical? Meaning is the cat urinating on the floors or on the walls. As a first level impression, the behavioral problems tend to be vertical. The horizontal tend to be physiological.
Probably ninety eight percent of litter box problems are physiological. In short, the cat is usually trying to avoid pain that it is receiving while in the litterbox. The pain can come from urinary tract infection, stones in the bladder, interstitial cystitis, or blocked anal glands, infected anal glands, or pain originating in the rectum or lower back of the cat. What ever is the cause of the pain, the cat will avoid the litter box and go on other surfaces that it thinks will be pain-free and comfortable. Places like the bed, a pillow, the laundry basket, or different areas around on the carpet are typical signs that a cat is avoiding the litterbox and is trying to find a place that doesn't hurt when it eliminates.
The diagnostic database must include: The history, a thorough physical exam, a urinalysis, an anal gland expression, a fecal parasite test, and sometimes xrays and blood work to rule out other diseases. This is a general review of the issue, but I will post more information on the topic as poeple inquire about various associated issues.
Lastly, your cat is not urinating on the bed to make you mad or get even with you. It is trying to avoid pain when it eliminates. And if the tests all confirm the problem is behavioral, then your cat may have to be put on some type of behavior modifying medication like valium, prozac, or buspirone to control it's anxieties and emotional need to mark the house with urine.
Dr. Doug Ikeler www.drdougikeler.com

Opening Day!

Welcome all friends of felines. As a cat specialist veterinarian, I will use this blog to offer advice on the many unusual diseases of cats and how you can managed and treat them. I will always conclude that you need to take your cat to a vet for a real examination and diagnosis, but this blog will be helpful as a first level discussion forum for problems you may be having with your kitty. Also, I will answer questions about human health and bring in topics of human medical concern as they arise. This will be fun and interesting for us all. I hope you like our sponsors advertisements as well.
Dr. Doug Ikeler www.drdougikeler.com