Sick cat after adopting 2nd cat?

Question

Hi all,

Some Background Info: My cat, Archie, is a 4 y/o medium hair tabby cat. About 3 weeks ago, we adopted a second cat from the Humane Society. About a week after we adopted her, Archie had diarrhea for about a week and also vomited a couple of times.

The Dilemma: He was ok for awhile, then last week, one of his eyes was kept closed sometimes and he had lots of clear tears coming from that eye. We took him to the vet and he prescribed a cornucopia of drugs for him, antibiotic gel for his eye, antibiotic pills, lysine supplement. His eye got better like a day after using these meds and is still ok now, but today he vomited twice. Once it looked kinda brown, the second time it looked light brown-orange.

Could he have an upper respiratory infection from the other cat? Or worms? Or could the drugs be affecting his already sensitive stomach? I don't trust vets based on bad advice given to a close friend of mine, so I wonder about the meds...

Thanks a ton in advance!

Answer 1

Is there an animal hospital nearby? That's really the best place for Archie. Princess, our 15 year-old suddenly stopped eating and we took her to a vet who diagnosed her with a dental infection. They put her under to clean her teeth and gums. When we took her home, she still wouldn't eat and she stopped jumping. After 4 trips to three vets, we finally took her to an animal hospital where she was diagnosed with cancer. Two days later we had her put down. All that suffering for nothing. We would have spared her all of that poking and prodding and pain had she been diagnosed correctly to begin with.

If Archie is not better after taking all those meds, then take both cats to an animal hospital. I say both because you never know if the new cat brought something in with it.

I hope Archie is okay. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

Answer 2

If you don't trust vets, why on Earth would you trust the strangers on Yahoo Answers?! Because I can guarantee you're not going to find better advice on here!

Vomiting and diarrhoea isn't really a sign of respiratory problems. I trust you're continuing to use the meds, including the eyes ones? Antibiotics need to be given for the specified time, even if the condition seems better or some of the bacteria will remain and the condition can reoccur.

If you're worried about worms in your cat, just worm him. Get some proper dewormer from the vet and then you can rule this problem out. It's something that should be done regularly anyway so you don't have to worry about worms.

I wouldn't call antibiotic gel, pills and a supplement a 'cornucopia' either - given that your cat is displaying fairly non-specific signs the vet could've prescribed even more, to cover even more possibilities!

I would hope an animal from a humane society would be vaccinated, but if not it's time to start thinking about this for both of your cats. If the cat is a cat flu carrier it might be possible for him to transmit this virus without showing signs himself, but it doesn't sound like cat flu. If it was any virus I think it would be most likely to be FIV, which can display as signs of acute illness when first transmitted, before it becomes 'dormant'. You might want to get an FIV test for both cats, especially if the cat from the humane society has not had one before (I would think most charities would do this).

I think that's probably the best advice you're going to get on here, given that people on Yahoo Answers are not vet professionals and even if they were, they could give no better advice without examining the animal.

Chalice

Answer 3

take him to a different vet. the new cat sounds like it passed something on to your cat, the vet you took him to sounds like he just wanted to fatten his wallet and not really find out what is wrong with Archie. I am not sure of the symptoms of FIP or Leukemia, but they can be carried by cats not showing symptoms, kiss your kitty for me and good luck.