It was sometime in October that I noticed a wound on Mr Zurik’s belly. It never occurred to me that it could be sporotrichosis until after a week when it did not heal. Normally, Zurik heals very quickly from wounds.
So I brought him to the vet and a smear impression revealed some sporo cells on the wound. I was really taken aback, especially when there was only one wound. The vet also said it didn’t display the classical sporo lesion characteristics. Normally, after a week, other spots would be visible, yet there were none.
So we started him on Sporanox. He was already on Vetri DMG a week prior. Based on his weight, his dosage was a quarter of the tablet and I added fish oil to his food so that absorption of the medication would be better.
Zurik only comes for meals twice a day, so he could have contracted the fungus from anywhere. The sporo fungus lives in the soil.
Day 1 of being on medication, which was a week after I noticed the lesion.
There was no change for 9 days. After that, the lesion began to shrink visibly.
On Day 13 the lesion had shrunk to half the size.
Thankfully, no other lesions appeared anywhere else on his body.
On Day 15, the sporo lesion had completely closed up, but Zurik acquired a cut wound below the lesion.
Luckily the cut wound healed quite fast.
By Day 29, both wounds had healed and hair started growing back.
We are currently on the 30-day post healing medication. It is recommended that medication be continued for 30 days after all lesions have healed to prevent a relapse.
I’m so glad Mr Zurik recovered!
Comments
3 responses to “Zurik’s encounter with sporotrichosis”
That is one nasty cut.
Thank goodness it is over! You must have been really tied up with giving him meds and such. I bet Zurik loves the attention he has been getting. Maybe even posing a bit for the photos.
Oh yes, it was a very trying time, especially since he is Zurik. But feeding him the meds was easy, thankfully. And he recovered fast too. I’m so thankful it did not spread to the other PatioCats.