Feline Stomatitis

Feline stomatitis is an inflammatory disease that causes severe tissue changes around the gums of the teeth and back of the mouth. The condition can occur at any age in cats and is only treatable with dental cleanings, tooth extraction, antiinflammatory drugs, and laser surgical reduction of the inflamed tissues.

The presenting complaints for cats with feline stomatitis include, growling, pawing at the mouth, drooling, pain and hissing when eating, yowling, and weight loss. Sometimes too the cat presents for not being able to close it's mouth because a tooth has become loose and is wedging the cat's mouth open. The physical exam is usually diagnostic as the characteristic tissue changes, called faucitis, from all the inflammation at the back of the mouth, is very obvious, as in the pictures above. Biopsy and histological analysis is not often done, but when it is, lymphocytic and plasmacytic cells dominate the cellular structures.

The cause of the disease is a combination of gingival immune reaction to the dental plaque, and quasi-autoimmune response to the actual dental tissues themselves. The cat is essentially allergic to it's own teeth, as evidenced by dental erosions at the sulcus line, and eventual tooth loss, if the condition is left untreated. It is worth noting here that cats have a very strange immune system and are plagued by various diseases where the immune system cells go rogue in the body and form tumors, like lymphomas, eosinophilic lesions like rodent ulcers in the lips, and other autoimmune type diseases like oral stomatitis. It has never ceased to amaze me how independently the immune system can function. To form tumors, cancers, and inflammatory responses to the bodies own healthy tissues, says the immune system may well have a mind of it's own.

Treatment of the disease is by client and veterinarian choice. The least destructive treatments include frequent dental cleanings, and oral predisone administration. More aggressive treatments include dental extraction and laser ablation of the affected and inflamed tissues. I have used all the methods listed here for treatment, but my approach is to use the gentle and conservative treatments unless more aggressive therapy is absolutely needed. Monthly injections of Depo-Medrol, a long-acting injectable version of prednisilone, and even gold injections work well to control chronic plasmacytic-lymphocytic gingivitis and stomatitis. The gold injections though, which are also used to treat chronic arthritis in people, come with some odd side effects like a general loosening of the cats connective tissues in it's joints and skin.

Feline stomatitis is only treated and not cured, though some vets tout that complete dental extraction of all the cat's teeth is a cure, since that does end the stomatitis response. Losing all the teeth, I would say is a treatment, because it is a permanent change to the normal anatomy, and though it ends the disease, it also ends the dentition.

Many Thanks go out to Jaya and her cat Gamma for their suggestion of this article.

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

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

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Kissing Cats and Toxoplasmosis

People love their cats! So it's hard not to hug them and kiss them. This is normally not a problem, unless you're pregnant.

Toxoplasmosis is a protozoal parasite that is generally not harmful to healthy adults. Our immune system generates antibodies against it and anyone who has had cats their whole life, like me, probably has a strong immunity developed for this parasite. The trouble comes with immunodeficiency.

A pregnant woman has a lowered immune system. This is nature's way of preventing an abortion of the fetus, as it too is recognized as a foreign invader. The unborn child also has a very low immune response while it is in-utero, otherwise it would be in a constant state of inflammation.

The toxoplasmosis parasite takes advantage of these low states of immunity and can cause brain damage and internal organ damage in an unborn child. Certainly, this is not what someone wants for their new baby. It is actually a rare occurrence, with less than one in three thousand babies being affected by toxoplasmosis, but it is worth taking the easy precautions.

If you are a pregnant woman, or you are immunocompromised by HIV, AIDS, or immuno-suppressive drugs, then take these preventive steps: Let your spouse or someone else clean the cat box. Use rubber gloves, and a face mask, if you are the one who has to clean the litter box. And definitely don't kiss your cat. If you have had cats all your life, you are probably already immune to toxoplasmosis, but while pregnant, still be cautious.

My mother loved to kiss cats, as she was an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle, after her mother died in childbirth and her father was away as a major in the Army. She made her cats her friends in an environment where her much older guardians may not have given her enough love and attention. Even grown though, she loved to lay on the couch, with a favorite kitty hugged up close, her lips pressed close to their cheek. We all can admit the joys of holding and patting our kitties, and for the most part, it is never a problem. I'm sure the cats enjoy the affection too.

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

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

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Niacin, Neurology, Lights Out, and Pledge Air Freshener

Cats are tough animals and have few medical problems in certain areas. Neurology is just such an area. During my entire veterinary career, I saw very few neurology cases in cats. Their nervous system is not plagued by many diseases, but a few interesting cases did arise.

Niacin deficiency is rare in any animal, especially in cats, though it can occur. I had a kitten come in who was holding his head down low, as though it was just hanging over, and as I hadn't seen this condition before, I had to call Colorado State University Veterinary College for a little advice.

I talked to Dr. Ingram who was the head of neurology there. He immediately knew the diagnosis and I started the kitten on a B Vitamin supplement, and it was better by the next day. The kitten got to go home with just a little vitamin powder to sprinkle on it's food and avoided any shots, blood tests, or surgery. Lucky kitten.

The most common neurological problem in cats in Distemper, also known as Feline Panleukopenia. The Distemper virus attacks the respiratory system and nervous system of cats who have never been vaccinated for it and, if they live through having the disease, they are left with a permanent state of the wobbles that makes it difficult for them to coordinate their walking. Actual destruction of the cerebellum occurs in cats with Distemper, and those neurons never regenerate.

When I was a boy, our neighbor, Natalie Marx, had two orange tabbies that got distemper and they both walked very awkwardly for the rest of their lives. She fondly named them after our vet who saved them, so they were called Tucker and Burr.

One other unusual neurological case I had was with a cat that had a lymphoma tumor in it's medulla oblongata. The cat just got progressively weaker and weaker. The diagnosis required a Cat Scan (no pun intended) to detect the tumor. Unfortunately, that kitty had to be euthanized.

So speaking of neurology, what would cause an entire staff of three veterinary technicians and one veterinarian to go without electricity for three days at a vet hospital? Well, if the lights went out, what would you do? Call the electric company? Check the breaker box? Call to the main hospital of the group to ask Dr. Ikeler what to do with no power? All the above are proper courses of action, none of which was done. It was me wondering why I couldn't download computer information from that location, three days later that prompted the simple act of me going over and checking the circuit breaker box and clicking it back on. Four adult women, one with a doctorate degree, couldn't figure this out on their own. Sound frustrating? It was.

How about at one of my other five Cat Hospitals where I went in to use the bathroom, and slid across the floor like it was a skating rink. I looked to see if the floor was wet, it wasn't, then I wondered why everything in the bathroom was greasy. I looked around and quickly noticed there was a can of Pledge furniture polish sitting on the back of the toilet, right where air freshener would normally be. The entire staff, and the doctor at that location, were spraying the pledge around in the bathroom after they used it, and none of the four of them knew Pledge isn't an air freshener. How many geniuses do you think worked at that veterinary hospital?

It was incidents like these that made me question human intelligence in general. One of my professors at Cornell University was Carl Sagan. He also questioned if humans were intelligent and was quite open and honest that he didn't think we were. He thought we might have moments of semi-intelligence, but basically a lot of what people did to themselves and the planet he thought was very dumb. It was a privilege to have had such a famous person be one of my college professors. I still feel honored today to have known him.

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

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

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