My cat has feline herpes. How to manage sneezing and eye discharge?

Question

Blizzard has always suffered off and on from his feline herpes virus. It gets better then worse with sneezing and eye discharge. Is there anything I can do to help him besides antibiotics or L-Lysine? He refuses to eat food with lysine on it and feeding him antibiotics is almost impossible. Will he live a long life with this illness? Pet's info: Cat | Norwegian Forest Cat | Male | neutered

Jessica Keay, DVM · Accepted Answer

I am sorry to hear about Blizzard. Recent research is now showing that using a lysine supplement has little effect on these kitties with herpesvirus, so many of us are no longer recommending it. There are some companies that make it in a treat form if you wanted to try it in a different form for your kitty just in case. When he is having a flare up of nasal congestion you can try giving him a steam treatment a few times a day by placing him in your bathroom and running a hot shower to create a steam filled room and leaving him there for 10-15 minutes. Also putting a humidifier in his room at night may help. For the eyes, there are now topical anti-viral eye medications we can use. They are unfortunately not inexpensive. Most cats with this illness do live a normal length life, they just suffer from these frustrating flare-ups of illness. There are also oral anti-viral medications that can help these kitties, but if you have trouble medicating your cat this can be difficult to give. You can talk to your vet about getting the medications compounded at a special pharmacy to have kitty-friendly flavors added, or have them compounded into treat form, or in some cases some medications can be made into a transdermal gel where you apply the gel to the cat's ear and it is absorbed through the skin.

My cat has feline herpes. How to manage sneezing and eye discharge?

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