Kitty update

I took Spatula to the vet today, and he checked out reasonably okay.  Doctor doesn't think he has asthma, as most of his congestion and noise is in his nose and head, rather than his lungs. But lung noise in cats is apparently subjective and variable with cats' size and breathing rate, so it's not fully ruled out. To absolutely determine asthma they need to take x-rays, which is expensive, so for now we're trying another alternative - medication. The vet thinks Spatch may have basically a long lingering upper respiratory infection, or susceptibility to infection. I've been given a big tube (looks like a toothpaste tube) of lysine supplement gel which I'm to feed him twice a day. The theory is that the lysine will somehow boost his good bugs and kill the bad bugs. [Yes, this is a horribly primitive and probably blatantly wrong description, feel free to correct me.]

So, we'll see how he does over the next month. If he improves, we'll scale back the lysine until it's only used occasionally and/or to remediate bad snarfley episodes. If he doesn't improve, then we'll try adding antibiotics on top of the lysine, and if that doesn't work, we'll try the x-rays and see what, if anything, shows up.

This means I have to be home every day, twice a day, regularly, to feed my kitty his medication. I'm actually happy about this - I'm looking forward to a regular schedule with the kitty, even if it involves yucky lysine gel. I just hope that by the end of the month he hasn't chewed my fingers off.