I have shared lots of stories about Lychee the kitten and today I want to share in more detail his first visit to the vets and let you know the conditions he was diagnosed with. I found Lychee walking around in circles under a waste vehicle on the streets of Nanjing in China. I rescued him, wrapping him up in my jacket and took him to the local vets. His eyes and nose were runny and I was very concerned about his health condition.
When rescuing an animal the most nerve wracking part of the experience is often sitting at the vets waiting to see whether or not they’ve caught the most dangerous diseases like FPV. When Lychee got tested he didn’t have the most deadly diseases but he was diagnosed with a few medical problems. The first was Mycoplasma, this is a bacteria that can cause respiratory problems in cats. In our video of Lychee’s visit to the vets you can see lots of coloured discharge from his eyes and nose. This is one of the most common symptoms of mycoplasma infections. It looks terrible and I really thought he might have had a much worse disease. Eye drops are often needed too because it can cause conjunctivitis.
Herpes is another disease Lychee was diagnosed with during this visit to the vets. Feline Herpes is a highly contagious virus spread only between cats. Most animals and humans have a type of herpes virus spread only within their own species. It’s really common for kittens to catch this virus from their mothers when they are very young and feeding from her. There is no cure for herpes but symptoms don’t necessarily always show. Sometimes the virus is dormant and hides away for a while, only becoming active and producing symptoms now and then.
The symptoms of Feline Herpes are pretty similar to how Mycoplasma affects the respiratory system. It often causes conjunctivitis, discharge from the nose and eyes, coughing and can even make a cat lose their appetite and become sleepy. Lychee definitely didn’t have any of the sleepiness, he was always wide awake, with his curious big eyes looking around.
Lychee was living in a small veterinary practice while this testing took place. The vets began treating him with medicines, eye drops and often cleaned his ears which became dirty again very quickly. Because Lychee tilted his head and walked a little unstably, almost like he was walking in circles slowly chasing his tail, the vet wanted to perform a CT scan.
Thankfully Lychee didn’t have any obvious problems with his brain. The vet suggested problems with his ears could also cause is head to tilt but the vet put a device into his ears to take a closer look and apart from being a little blocked, there weren’t any signs of problems. It’s a coincidence that Lychee had this uncommon titled head symptom because the first kitten I ever rescued had the same problem. In their case it turned to that they most likely had vestibular disease. It can develop all of a sudden and cause imbalance, walking sideways or around in circles. This disease makes the cat look like they have a problem with their brain or severe disability because it is quite uncommon to see and looks really shocking. Funnily enough, it often disappears again over a matter or weeks and in some cases months.
At this stage in Lychee’s journey we were thankful that he hadn’t caught any dangerous diseases, even though he would later catch one. We began to play with Lychee more and more while he lived at the vets and it didn’t take long for us to decide to bring him home to a comfortable warm and spacious bedroom. Lychee is adorable, his titled head adds even more charm and along with his big eyes and extremely curious and loving personality, everyone who meets him falls in love with him.
I’ll embed our video into this article now so you can see Lychee during his first stay at the vets. In the video you’ll see that the vets often cleaned his ears and he had to have a few injections too. He took a visit in his cat carrier to have a CT and ear scan and also came home to have some play time in his new bedroom.