Atopica - anyone have any experience with it?

[meriad]

Hi everyone, haven't been here for a while - hope everyone has been keeping well?

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with Atopica for their cat? My Harry has been diagnosed with a dust mite allergy and I've done what I can to try dust mite proof the house as much as I can; but it's not an easy one. After discussion with the vet we've decided to go down the Atopica route to see if that will help him and reduce the sensitivity in his ears (which is where the allergy is manifesting itself).

I've been given the choice of either liquid or capsules that can be opened and sprinkled so I've gone for the latter in the hope I can disguise it in his malt treat that he likes. But I was wondering if anyone has used either pill or liquid in the past and how easy / difficult it was to administer?

thanks !!!

[lilynmitz]

Hi Ria, sorry, to hear Harry's been uncomfortable. I don’t have experience of this treatment but am interested to know what the symptoms are? Elsie is constantly scratching her ears, which initially was ear mites which we have under control, and I check her ears frequently, but I’m wondering if this could also be an allergy issue as you describe.

[meriad]

Hey there

He tends to scratch at his ears quite a bit leaving bloody scabs etc and he often walks with his ears pointing side or down-ward vs the proper upright ear that you normally see on cats. And he's more wind sensitive in his ears; if a breeze catches the ear at a certain angle it seems to be quite uncomfortable for him and he turns his head. And if you look into his ears there are a lot of little bumps and lumps that shouldn't be there.

As a bit of background (and keeping it brief)... Harry used to sneeze loads (excuse the details) with big blobs of greeny mucus adorning my windows, walls, bedding etc. I suspected a food intolerance so cut out cereals and that seemed to work. He then developed polyps in his ears which I had surgically removed but about a year later these polyps came back. Because they were quite deep and a lot smaller I ended up having to go to a specialist who identified them not a polyps but as something else (never quite understood the word - cystic oedema / cystomatosis?) which were then removed and he treated with steroids. But for some reason the ears never totally cleared up and after discussion with the vet we decided to run an allergy test because something definitely wasn't right; and that then confirmed the dust mite allergy. That's putting about 2 years of vet visits into a few lines but you get the gist?


As a by the by - I'm not sure the sneezing that stated this all of is actually allergy related as he hasn't sneezed since before the end of 2016 so whatever was causing that seems to have sorted itself

The allergy test wasn't the cheapest, but at least now I know what I'm dealing with. Not the easiest given most common advice is to shut all doors and windows and use air purifiers etc, oh and to remove cats from bedrooms, but that doesn't work when it's the cat that has the issue and it has regular indoor / outdoor access via open cat flaps and open windows and doors

[lilynmitz]

Crikey, you have been through it with him. Elsie being a bit scratchy pales into insignificance by comparison. House dust mite allergies really are hard to address, as basically they're everywhere. My family have house dust mite allergies, and basically all we can do is clean up as best we can but then treat the remaining symptoms, which is about where you are now anyway. Sorry I can't be more constructive than that. I hope the treatment is helpful though.

[meriad]

Another daft one for you to try - have you smelt Elsie's ears? Sounds gross, but because of the polyps Harry ended up with a wax build up deep down that couldn't get out (which is what would usually happen when they shake their head), and believe you me - it has a certain smells. Elsie could be scratching because she's uncomfortable further down the ear canal where you can't see but unless you get close and personal you may never know. Has the vet had a good look down the ear canal?

Abbie had / has ear mites but you can see that because the inside of the ears are a dirty brown. Harry never had that - just an 'off' smell

[lilynmitz]

Thanks for that tip, her ears are clean - she’s quite good at letting me turn them inside out for an inspection, bless her, but I haven’t tried sniffing them I’ll give it a go.