Chronic sinus infection...

[sol]

My cat has officially been diagnosed with a chronic sinus infection. The vet took some x-rays. It seems that he has pus and infection in his nasal sinuses and the upper ones as well (above the eyes). They flushed his nasal sinuses with a saline/antibiotic solution, but the only way to get to the other ones is by surgery which the vet won't do because to quote him "if I can't handle this cat, you won't be able to, especially with a new baby." So surgery is out. We're doing a month long course of antibiotics (which the cat is absolutely THRILLED about) and I bought an immune system booster.

I still haven't figured out how to get that booster into him. It's in powder for and ideally you put it in canned food. However, he won't eat canned food, I can't mix it up with water and dose him, and I can't figure out how to get him to take it. I've put some in with his dry and coated the dry food so hopefully he'll get something in him...but I know it's not enough. I don't know what to do about that.

I'm feeling guilty though. DH and I have decided that once this course of anitbiotics is over that we are done. We are not going to treat him any longer. We've been battling this problem for almost two years now with no success. We finally got a diagnosis and hopefully this will work, but he's been on antibiotics since the beginning of October and they haven't done a thing. Just keep your fingers crossed for my little boy and hope that this works out this time.

Oh, and here are some pics of my baby Ash

[strawberryfine]

Have you tried mixing his meds with a bit of tuna or some chicken baby food?

I sure hope he recovers.

[rainkloud]

first, i want to say that i am sorry to hear this. i wish you the best of luck.
i would most definitly recommend a second opinion. i have found many times that another doctor has another point of view that could change everything.
my fiance's family was ready to put thier dog down due to a poor diagnosis and course of treatment that was going to cost them $600. i told them about my vet and they got the medicine they needed for under $20, and the dog is completly healed.
chronic sinus infections could be caused by many things...have you tried getting a air purifier? they are fabulous, especially if you have a new baby and all. i must have had a hundred cats in my life already and have gone through several challenging things like this.
i once had a siamese with sinus infections that didn't seem to go away, and it turned out to be her teeth! one of them was abscessed in the gum and spread to her sinus.
if you decide to stop treatment i highly recommend that you have her 'put to sleep' as oppposed to stopping the medication. that will cause a very painfull passing.
i trapped and cared for a almost feral stray, with a nasty infected bite on her leg and i used to give her antibiotics through a syringe with no needle that the vet gave me.
i wrapped her up in a towel so only her head stuck out and gave her the medicine. wasn't very pretty, but wasn't hard to do. you just need a firm hand.
hope this advice works for you. it's just the course of action i would personally take.
good luck

[sol]

I have plenty of experience medicating my cat. It's just that I don't want to traumatize the poor baby anymore. We've been going through this for almost two years now and two vets. I've gotten several opinions on the matter. It is a sinus infection. They sent of cultures to the lab and it came back as such...and it is chronic because it hasn't gotten better in the past year or so.

After this month long course of antibiotics we are going to stop medicating and traumatizing the cat. We will monitor his quality of life and if we see him deteriorate we will put him to sleep. I can't believe anyone would even thing to suggest that I would just allow an animal to suffer.

[sol]

Originally Posted by strawberryfine

Have you tried mixing his meds with a bit of tuna or some chicken baby food?

I sure hope he recovers.

I have not! I will try the tuna...I know he can't resist a good can of tuna. Maybe baby food will work better though because it's a powder. Good ideas...thanks!