written by Madison’s Mom, Ari
Maddy suffers from an ‘over active immune response’ to what we believe is her plastic allergy. This is called Eosinophilic Granuloma Complex. Maddy has had breakouts of plaques on her paw and her haunch, which she will chew and lick incessantly, or more often she gets a ‘rodent ucler’ in her lip or on her chin. We suspect that stress can contribute to the breakout.
Previously the treatment was a Depo-Medrol injection – which is a fast acting inexpensive steroid that suppresses her immune system long enough for the ulcer to clear up. Now there is a treatment called Atopica (Ciclosporin) which enables us to control her immune system so these breakouts don’t occur or occur much less often. Atopica is also a steroid but a much slower acting one, that hopefully won’t damage her insides too much. If steroids aren’t good for people, then they aren’t good for our fur kids either.
So Maddy gets a small dose of Atopica every third day. Originally she had a dose daily for 1 month, then every two days for two weeks and now every third day. This is a liquid, given orally by syringe. But of course Maddy can’t have those plastic syringes in or near her mouth so we had to source Glass Syringes at a cost of $75 each (and the supplier will only sell them in a minimum quantity of 6 – so $450). The little bottle of Atopica is $176, but as Maddy is only 4.5 kgs, that bottle lasts about 3 – 4 months.
She is also taking a supplement called Immuno Support which is a Reishi mushroom derivative. The liquid version of this required Maddy to have 2mls twice a day – or 4 syringe fulls – so not fun for a cat. But the capsule version is a once a day so we have elected to go that route and pop this capsule down her throat with eye dropper full of water in the morning. BUT, the capsule doesn’t contain the Lysine that is in the liquid formula. So I purchased a high quality people version capsules and break one open in her morning and evening wet food to get the 1000 mgs into her little body. The lysine really helps and she has much less discharge from her eye.
Maddy loves to be brushed, so after every ‘traumatic treatment’ – syringe of Atopica, or Immuno Support (syringe or capsule), we have a lovely long brush which gets her purring and forgetting about the torture of having stuff put down her throat.
Click here for more information on Eosinophilic granuloma complex.
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In Memory Of Maggie May 