Molly is 12 years old. She's just... so miserable, mostly emotionally rather than physically. Physically, as long as she doesn't have a raging infection, I think she's only experiencing mild discomfort at worst. But emotionally she's a wreck. She's always been kind of shy, but now after 6 months of constantly being restrained and treated and dragged to the vet's office every two weeks, she's ultra paranoid. If I walk into the room she's in, she immediately gets up and crouches, staring at me, waiting to see if I'm going to come over and restrain her. She HATES having a warm/hot washcloth held to her chin. She hates being touched, now, even though I've made a real effort to try to go and pet her when I don't need to do anything to her chin so that she won't be so freaked out.
If you have time to answer, how did your cat respond to the hot compresses? Did she scratch/bite you? How did you shave her chin? Molly has gotten to the point of being really uncooperative and sometimes very aggressive -- I've been bitten and scratched a number of times.
I think the situation with Phoebe's human and Molly are two entirely different things. If cysts or "boils" are present, they need to be diagnosed properly/differentiated against other conditions (i.e., inflammatory vs immunological vs fungal, etc).
The scabs are probably a very good indication the skin is trying to heal. As stated earlier, the less manipulation of sensitive tissue, the more likely the ability to heal.
You could opt for the antiinflammtory injection, (I'd ask for oral administration of prednisolone - lowest dose possible) and if there is a favorable response, then I would strongly advise getting Molly onto a hypoallergenic diet. If you can attempt a trial of a hypoallergenic diet and get favorable results, then the problem will most likely be resolved. Also, as stated earlier, a hypoallergenic diet would be the first course of action/treatment to ECG (if diagnosed) anyway. I would NOT, however, allow your vet to continue giving antiinflammatory injections without additional diagnostics to accurately diagnose a specific condition. Long-term use of steroids are not without risks. In a 12-year-old cat, a steroidal approach should be used with every caution, and bloodwork monitored during the course of any steroid administration.
Curious, did your vet evaluate Molly's oral health? Any evidence of diseased teeth, excess bacteria?
I'm waiting for a call back from the vet to discuss the oral steroids and hypoallergenic diet. I've been reading about the potential issues with more than short term use of the injected methylprednisolone acetate (which is what I keep seeing referenced in articles about EGC) so since Molly's chin currently has blackheads but nothing else abnormal, I'd think the oral prednisolone would be a better option.
I don't know for sure that either vet examined Molly's teeth carefully since this started up -- just restraining her during the exams takes up all of my attention and neither of them has mentioned it -- but at her check-up in (March? April? I'd have to look it up) the vet commented that her teeth looked excellent...
Well, there's always the potential of an oral health problem, like a diseased tooth, ulcerations, gingivitis, bacterial infection. Usually, the cat will stop eating or have difficulty eating, may drool, or paw at the face if there is a significant problem. You haven't mentioned any of this, but it wouldn't hurt during her next exam to evaluate her oral health.
Only my opinion, but I prefer oral prednisolone for mild cases of EGC. The dose is smaller, and effects are usually quicker as opposed to injectables.
Having said that, you could start Molly on the hypoallergenic diet NOW, and not even give the prednisolone at all, depending on the severity of the lesions. Only problem with this is you may not see results immediately but rather, in a few weeks. In my opinion, it's worth a try to get her on the new diet right away.
Traci wrote:Having said that, you could start Molly on the hypoallergenic diet NOW, and not even give the prednisolone at all, depending on the severity of the lesions. Only problem with this is you may not see results immediately but rather, in a few weeks. In my opinion, it's worth a try to get her on the new diet right away.
There aren't any lesions now, unless you consider blackheads (which are more a pore blocked with dark material than a lesion IMO) to be lesions. There's only been one lesion (a raised, reddish pimple with pus inside) since she stopped the antibiotics in mid Sept, and that one went away within a day and a half of putting the OxyDex on it (poor trade for having half the skin on her chin slough off, in my book, but it did go away.)
WG, you asked how my cat responded to the shaving and the hot compresses.
I had got my cat as a young kitten who had probably been taken from her mother too soon. I've heard that kittens in this situation often form very strong bonds with their human caretaker--but are suspicious and snarly about other people. This was my cat exactly.
She had a trust in me that was almost unbelievable. She arrived with a bad case of earmites, and that involved lots of treatments on her ears, which I did. So early in her life she got used to me picking her up and putting her on my lap for an ear treatment. When the chin acne came along, she was still used to having me treat her.
She seemed to like the hot compresses. I used large cotton balls soaked in fairly warm water. The shaving with a regular razor and a disposable razor didn't work so well, and so I got a professional pet clippers.
It made a noise she didn't like, but once she got used to the noise, she was OK about that too.
It's possible she was so miserable with those cysts or whatever they were that she was glad to get some relief. The warm compresses started drawing the pus out very quickly, and she'd start feeling better fast.
The vet's attitude on the acne was that you may not be able to cure it entirely, but you can keep it under control.
If I felt I was going to get a lot of resistance from a cat for a treatment I knew I had to give, I'd wait till the cat was sound asleep, and then I'd approach very gently and pick her up with a lot of stroking. I'd turn off any TVs or radios, and even the phone, so that the cat wouldn't get startled and jump away. If the cat puts up too much resistance, I'd try again later.
Since most cats like to sit on laps, I've found that the lap is the best place to do anything like giving a pill or brushing teeth or cleaning a chin that has acne.
Also, it's best to plan the treatment well in advance--get it all set up and ready to go, with the supplies you need handy, and you do this quietly so your cat won't get wise. Sooner or later the cat will recognize the supplies and hide when they appear. Or will jump out of your arms when she catches sight of them. To avoid this, get your cat when she's asleep, and cover her eyes with your hand as you transport her to wherever you're going to sit with her. This may sound mean, but it works.
