Author Topic: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve  (Read 2114 times)

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Offline Lola

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Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« on: June 21, 2016, 10:17:28 AM »
Interesting interview:

Snip..

Quote
Jenny: What are some of the signs that your kitty has conjunctivitis?

Dr. Jean: Well often, you’ll just notice them squinting one eye.  There may be any discharge and it can be any thickness or color.  It can be watery.   It can be goopy.  It can be green.  It could be clear.  It could be yellow.  It could be white.  You may notice that eyes look puffy and swollen and red.

Not all cats will have all symptoms.  Sometimes, they’re very subtle.  The squinting one is a big one though because that shows pain.  Squinting is a sign of pain. That’s definitely when you want to get on it.

Jenny: What do you do?  What do you mean by getting on it?  What are the options?

Dr. Jean: Well as you know, viruses are pretty much impossible to kill.  Antiobiotics are not useful.  They don’t help.  Sometimes vets will prescribe antibiotic ointment for the eyes or some kind of tear solution.  Generally, those also have a steroid in them to get the inflammation down which reduces the pain.  It’s a very small amount of steroids but you have to remember that steroids suppress the immune system.  You may be working it cross purposes by suppressing the immune system in the eye – you may actually make it worse.  You wanna use  steroids with caution.  But, it cat is very uncomfortable,  that’s certainly a valid thing to do.

There are a number of things.  Let’s go back a little bit and talk about why so many cats have conjunctivitis.  Why are so many cats symptomatic?  I’ve looked into this over the years.  It goes back a little bit to pet food.  Over the years, cat food (and dog food of course) have been changing.  It used to be in the early days of pet food that there was meat in them and a lot of meat and mostly meat in fact.  But over the years, meat packers have gotten very, very good at skimming every last single molecule of meat off the bones.   Now, what you get is lower quality – you know, chicken meal or by product meal or something of that nature.

It’s really not a good quality product and there’s less meat than ever.  That’s why you lost and see secondary protein sources like corn gluten meal or other cheaper sources of protein, by product meals, meat and bone meals involved in meals in the food.  Those have less meat.  The key to this is that meat has a lot of lysine in it.  Lysine seems to be protective or preventive of herpes viruses.  It’s been known for many decades in humans.  It’s been used as a treatment for kitties. Let me think for a second here.  I’m getting wound up, Jenny.

The thing about corn and corn gluten meal as a protein substitute is that corn is low in lysine.  Over the years, as more and more corn has been substituted for more and more meat, that’s where we start seeing problems.  The kitties that were on low quality dry food are gonna be deficient in lysine.  I think that this is a big reason why we see more and more symptomatic cats because there’s less and less lysine in the food and more and more opportunities for the virus to get a foothold and flare up.

http://www.floppycats.com/cat-conjunctivitis-and-cat-herpes-with-dr-jean-hofve.html


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Offline DeeDee

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Re: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2016, 10:24:36 AM »
 thumbsup1
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog."

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Re: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2016, 10:30:57 AM »
Quote
Sometimes vets will prescribe antibiotic ointment for the eyes
... and/or convenia.

Been there, done that ...with two different vets and 3 cats.  :(
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Re: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2016, 10:39:10 AM »
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There’s also a homeopathic remedy from a company A E U R A, Aeura?  I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you how to pronounce it.  They produce homeopathic remedies for herpes in humans.  I have seen this stuff absolutely work overnight miracles.  One of my neighbors when I lived up in Jamestown at the second floor, it was three apartments, the next door apartment.  Bill and I, we just leave our doors open all the time and our cats will run back and forth.  That was a lot of fun for them.  They got a lot of social interaction.

When he got two kittens, one of them had really, really severe conjunctivitis.  He was miserable.  His eyes were puffy and red.  He had puff looking goop running down the side.  It was really sad and he was obviously in a lot of pain.  We put him on this stuff.  It’s about fifty bucks bottle.   I think you get a hundred tablets.   You take one tablet and put it in a one ounce dropper full of water.  You use a few drops of that in their food just once or twice a day.
http://aeura.com/viewitem.php?productid=5
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Re: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2016, 11:00:52 AM »
Sooooo, the odds of a raw fed cat (or dog) needing Lysine added to their food .... are slim? 
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Re: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2016, 11:35:03 AM »
Sooooo, the odds of a raw fed cat needing Lysine added to their food .... are slim? 

http://feline-nutrition.org/answers/answers-lysine-and-raw-meat-diets
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 11:40:33 AM by DeeDee »
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog."

Offline DeeDee

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"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog."

Offline Lola

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Re: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2016, 01:33:34 PM »
Interesting... one source states that giving Lysine to a cat that doesn't need it... no harm done.  Another says it could be a problem. 

As for what I do...  if there are no herpes flareups going on... no Lysine is given. 
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Re: Cat Conjunctivitis And Cat Herpes - Dr. Jean Hofve
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2016, 07:04:37 PM »
Dr. Hofve also mentions Willard Water.

Quote
Willard Water is really interesting stuff.  I’ve looked on their website. I have no idea what it is or what it does.   But, I’ve added it to their water fountains because one of my cats has, Sundance, has flare ups.
As long as I put Willard Water in their water, he really is pretty good.  He just has little eye boogies in the morning.  Every morning, he comes in and has me pick his eye boogies out.  I don’t notice it too much with the other cats.  They don’t seem to have such problems.   Sundance hasn’t had a real flare up in years because he’s been on the Willard Water constantly.

So that’s a really interesting product.  You can get it from Vitacost.com, pretty cheap.  You can get it at health food stores.  Vitamin Cottage has it.  It’s not that expensive.  What I do is, I use an ounce in a gallon of water and then use that to refill their bowls with.  So that they always shave a little bit.  I don’t know what it does or why it works.  It does work.

www.drwillard.com




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