Hope for Cats with Snots, Snuffles, and Snorks
How do you remove dried snot from painted walls without damaging the paint? You can’t. At least that’s my experience with my chronic snotting, snuffling, sneezing, snorking cat. Winston has successfully plastered my walls with copious amounts of mucous with a holding power rivaling the largest tube of gorilla glue. If you have one of these snorkers in your house, there is hope!
I recently attended a veterinary conference lecture that focused on these cats by Cynthia Stubbs, DVM, DACVIM. We all know snot-nosed cats can prove difficult to manage for both veterinarians and pet owners. Once the appropriate diagnostics are performed to rule out some of the more easy to treat issues, many pet owners are faced with the choice of advanced and often expensive diagnostics. While I still strongly recommend performing a vast array of diagnostics to get to the heart of the disease, many times cats suffer from difficult to diagnose rhinitis and sinusitis that can be exacerbated by respiratory infections. There is a probable association between chronic snorkers and chronic infections with herpes and calicivirus. Both herpes and calicivirus attack nasal and upper airway mucosa, causing chronic inflammation that can lead to nasal discharge and destruction of the delicate nasal bones that sit inside the nasal passages. This correlation has lead Dr. Stubbs to pursue both palliative and curative treatments.
Dr. Stubbs suggested one such treatment involves giving affected cats intranasal bivalent vaccinations against herpes and calicivirus. The intranasal delivery is purported to increase local mucosal immunity and therefore decrease the inflammation in the nose. Dr. Stubbs reported some cats needed only the vaccine on an every 3-6 month basis for near complete relief. The off-label use of the vaccine does not confer any immunity to panleukopenia, so Dr. Stubbs recommended also giving the traditional subcutaneous trivalent FVRCP vaccine. In addition, Dr. Stubbs bravely uses the anti-inflammatory antibiotic doxycycline along with the NSAID piroxicam to provide additional symptomatic support. Word to the wise: Non-liquid forms of doxycycline are known to cause esophageal stricture in cats and piroxicam should not be used in cats with kidney disease.
I am planning on trialing the intranasal vaccine in my own snorker. We’ve tried multiple antibiotics – no small feat given Winston is a perceptive, neurotic, inflammatory bowel disease cat. Nothing has alleviated his six years of nasal congestion. I will certainly follow-up in future postings.
Diagnostics Performed in Nasal Discharge in Cats
- Complete physical exam
- Complete bloodwork, urinalysis, Felv/FIV testing, +/- coagulation testing
- Blood pressures, particularly if nasal discharge is hemorrhagic
- Nasal cytology, culture, and biopsy
- Viral detection tests
- X-rays, CT scans, Rhinoscopy
- Nasal Flushes
Common Diagnoses In Nasal Discharge in Cats
- Dental disease – very common
- Rhinitis/Sinusitis – very common
- Nasal foreign bodies
- Cancer
- Nasopharyngeal Polyps
- Infection: Bacterial, Viral, Fungal, Parasites – common either as primary or secondary diseases
- Trauma
- Hypertension or bleeding disorders
A pearl from this fall’s AAFP conference: “little noses” nasal drops (OTC for kids) to keep the cat from getting re-congested.
1Dr. V – What is the frequency of that dosing?
2Hi! I was happy to run across this posting as I own a chronic snorker as well. When we found Sierra she was 3 lbs as an adult and extremely congested with eye and nasal discharge. She has been on multiple antibiotics and it took quite a while to get rid of the infection she had. We have owned her for for a couple years now and, while she doesn’t have eye/nasal discharge, is still in a constant state on congestion. She was just recently diagnosed with a nasopharyngeal polyp this week which we are told will grow back. We will be contacting a soft tissue surgeon in the near future to have it removed. She is constantly on lysine and oxtrin which help her a lot but I am always interested to know if there is anything new out there I can do for her.
Have you had any success with your own cat with the intranasal distempers? How often have you had to give it? Have you tried any of the medications along with it?
3Oops! sorry for the late reply re. the Little Noses drops. It is recommended that they be used 1 drop in each nostril BID for no more than 3 days at a time. I do not have personal experience with them.
And yes- we vaccinate these cats with the intranasal vaccine, putting a drop in each eye as well to help with/prevent herpesvirus conjunctivitis and ulcers.
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