Thread: Feather allergy

poor sydney ...i dont know what one of mine would do with no feathers as it is the only thing he plays with

The plot has thickened....
A week after being neutered he went downhill again. After remortgaging the house to pay for the vets bills, it looks like he has probably had chlamydia and might also be suffering from calici virus. All the tests have been negative so far, but that does happen. He's been shot full of lots of lovely drugs and is on an ultra-pure diet with vitamin support and is looking a whole heap better.
The vet suspects he might have picked up my URI from fetching used tissues out of the bin and using them as substitute feathers!

So, he is now tons better. He still gets slightly watery eyes every now and again, and he does "dry sneeze" but he is otherwise fine. We have tried monitoring his breathing and gum line to see if there are symptoms prior to the eyes getting inflamed, but there is no pattern. He is eating like a hippopotamus, very active and seems to be growing out of it.

It's been a while, but we have an update...

We are now in a cycle of everything being fine for 6-8 weeks, then Sid's eyelids get puffy and then the sneezing starts again. He goes off his food a little bit and seems quieter. steroid injections perked him up, but were not an ideal solution; steroid tablets didn't seem to achieve anything. He was a little bit snuffly so, to test for the allergy theory, he spent a week in a cattery (where he had a fantastic holiday, by all accounts) and which did nothing to sort out his eyes. After long deliberation, the vet is pretty sure that Sid had calico virus before we got him and what we are now seeing is probably just how life is going to be. A shot of antibiotics seems to get him back to normal, suggesting that he is picking up a secondary bacterial infection every now and again.

He has free range in the garden since we fenced it properly, but the problem was happening before then so we don't think it has anything to do with him picking up something specifically outside. He is tiny, though, only 5.5 kg at 18 months old. He is slowly starting to gain weight again after a long dormant period, so we can but hope that he might catch up eventually!

Does anyone have any suggestions on anything we can do to support his immune system?

He only eats extortionately expensive food, mixed Applaws/Arden Grange dry food and Almo Nature tuna and whitebait in jelly with Thrive fish cat treats. We have tried a two month trial of Flumax which did not seem to make any difference. He has hypoallergenic bedding and we wash the floors with water and a micro fibre cloth without any chemicals. We know he is sensitive because he was fed (when I was out) some rice pudding by a well-meaning family member - apparently Sid really liked it - and ended up at the vets the next morning with bloody runny poo and acute stomach ache. It was soon fixed, and the family now accept that just cos our last cat ate rice pudding does not mean all cats can!

awww poor little Sidney not being allowed rice pudding... you know they put rice in cat food... may be try a pure meat diet for a little bit to see if that works to settle him?