My cat has been excessively licking herself on her back side, around the tail area and on her paws. So much so that now she has a bald spot on her rear end. This has been going on for a week now, from what I have noticed. I have tried brushing her to look for flea evidence but I have had no luck. She also doesn’t let me see her paws. She has been eating fine and nothing has been different in the home like food wise or litter wise. She occasionally goes out side just onto the deck but not lately due to the heat. What could this be? None of my other cats are showing the same behavior. Do I need to get her seen?

I have a male orange cat who has been in and out of the vet for urinary troubles.
Three weeks ago I took him into the emergency vet for what seemed to be a UTI, he was constantly trying to urinate only producing small amounts. I panicked because two years ago he experienced a total blockage.
The vet three weeks ago told me he was not blocked and had no crystals and sent me home with gabapentin.
Three weeks later he experienced an actual blockage. Again I took him to the vet, they unblocked him, flushed his bladder and told me this time he had a ton of crystals. They sent him home after about only an hour of being there. Two days of him being home he blocked AGAIN and I had to repeat the process. This time he came home with a catheter that I had to monitor. I took him back in the next day and they monitored him all day, then proceeded to call and say they would like to send him home with another catheter. I opted to have him stay at the vet overnight and he was sent home with no catheter the next day. I picked him up yesterday afternoon and he was just kind of dribbling urine and squatting around the house. At least this time urine was being produced, just not many strong streams.
Today he is acting normal until he urinates and then he feels like he has to keep going. He does that until he falls asleep. Then the process repeats.
He is currently taking Gabapentin, Prazosin, Zeniquin and he just finished his last pill of Onsior. He is also strictly eating OTC urinary wet food.
I’m just wondering if this is normal behavior after having being in and out of the vet so much within the last few weeks. He isn’t blocked up but he’s still trying to urinate often in and out of the litter box, producing some urine. He is able to drain his bladder, it just takes some time. I’ve dropped about $2500 so far and am so worried this isn’t going to get better soon. I’m sorry this was such a long post, I just need some help. I like my vet it just seems like there is more to do. Thank you in advance.

Hello all,
Writing in with an agonizing and drawn out struggle with my cat Petra..

I rescued a feral kitten in 2022 who developed cryptococcosis the following year – confirmed through a biopsy.
She has the cutaneous and nasal form, and while we tried itraconazole for a few months, it did devastating damage to her nose.
Vet switched her to fluconazole 37.5 mg (at that time my cat was just over year old and weighed 3.5 kg) once a day… and the symptom relief was remarkable!
Within a month, her nose was much less inflamed and starting to look “relatively normal” again, and best part was she was no longer having difficulty breathing, no stertor or mouth open.
Her many crusty skin lesions and nodules under the skin cleared up miraculously!

But, the success was short-lived, because a couple of months later she developed a big bulge on her abdomen/side under the skin – which eventually erupted. She had had several of these nodules and lumps, that ulcerated last year but the fluconazole seemed to clear them all up. Until now. I was so disheartened, to say the least.
The crater-like ulcer got infected and our vet (RCVS licensed in UK) decided surgery was the best option.
We did this, and the vet found more ulcers which needed to be removed to patch up the skin. It was a horrific looking surgery aftermath when she came home.

Petra required to wear a cone for 3 weeks after her surgery so she couldn’t touch her healing wound. It got infected anyway, and this increased her “cone suffering” duration.
The impact of many vet visits, surgery, and follow ups while the vet checked if the wound was healing and if the stitches could be removed, was quite an ordeal for Petra.
She gets very stressed and is difficult to put in a carrier. I feel that the stress of cone duration + all the vet trips triggered an inflammatory response in her and her nose started showing signs of the fungus again. Inflammation, distortion and worst of all the stertor was back.

The vet increased her fluconazole dose to 75 mg a day (37.5 mg morning, 37.5 mg evening). This had no noticeable effect and her nose got more inflamed as each day went by. 2 months later and her nose is worse than ever and the tip is so inflamed. With the loss of scent and ability to breathe sufficiently, she’s become reluctant to eat more than half a tin of food a day. Sometimes all she will eat is half a tablespoon and then runs off, upset.

Petra’s vet wants to put her on a maximum dose of 150 mg of fluconazole, daily, before assessing her quality of life and potential euthanasia.
I decided to try homeopathic remedies first, while continuing 75 mg a day of fluconazole) but it doesn’t appear to be helping 3 weeks in.

I’m concerned about continuing vet interventions, because Petra is so stressed by them, and at 150 mg a day she will need to see the vet frequently and likely need blood tests. At 150 mg a day, it’s also a non sustainable chunk of my monthly expenses (taken from diminishing savings), and she is not my only cat or responsibility… this could go on for years..

If she has no positive response (symptoms relief) at 150 mg, the vet is out of ideas other than euthanasia. I live in Bahrain and the options for treating this fungus are very limited.
They have not seen it in over 40 years of vet practice, so this is a first time.

I love Petra and it’s been hell witnessing her struggle to breathe for over a year. That’s what makes me panicky and consider quality of life, if she cannot be cured or brought to a level of management where the fungus doesn’t impede her breathing.

I need advice from a community of animal lovers, vets, who can also understand and take into consideration her temperament and adverse reaction (inflammation) to vet visits.

I was really hoping the homeopathic medicine would help and the practitioner I found has many years of successes working with animals. It’s either the wrong remedy, or just going to take a long time. In the meantime, in my opinion, my cat is suffering and struggling. She takes gasps of air every so often and her mouth is slightly open while she makes a snoring sound as she tries to breathe through her blocked airway. She has lost weight as she eats much less now. She was 4.7 kg in April before her surgery. At the beginning of June she was 4.5 kg and now she is closer to 4 kg.
Also within the last 2 months, her eyes have gotten affected by the nodules. One above her right eye, under the skin and affecting the bone. The other is in her left lower eyelid.
During this whole ordeal, her right lymph node under her jaw has been the size of a golf ball.. and the left one also swelled up a few months later. But that side seems to have gone down.

Any help or advice on what to do.. would be very much appreciated.

Pics from most recent (today June 3rd 2024) to last year before fluconazole and way before, late 2022, when she was a kitten.

Hello! I have a 14 month Bernese Mountain dog who has been limping for quite a while now. He started off with lameness shifting over all 4 legs, but now he is just lame in the front left. It’s constant and gets worse when he runs about and will hold his leg up. He doesn’t whine and it doesn’t prevent him from activities. I’ve reduced his walks to lead walks, and even reduced his walking to see if that helps but it hasn’t made a difference. He’s had an x ray of all four limbs, checking for hip and elbow dysplasia and his legs and joint all look good with no issues… We’ve been advised this is growing pains, which we suspected and heard is quite common in young large breed dogs. However, this lameness has been going on for a more than a couple of weeks and no sign of it getting better. Checked his paw pads and in between to see if there is anything stuck. No heat or swelling or cuts anywhere. Anyone else experienced prolonged lameness with no obvious source? Or any advise as to how I could identify a source? I’m just concerned something’s been missed as it’s been going on for a long time.

My dog has an aggressive retrobulbar mass. He’s been doing okay with gabapentin. But today he seems to be having trouble breathing and is bleeding from his nose. Will he be able to make it until tomorrow when we can go to our vet if it’s time to say goodbye?

Hello Dr. Magnifico,

I called your clinic about cat ear polyps. I watched your videos on Youtube about these. I believe my cat has one and was wondering what price range your office charges for the removal of these. Here I either get we can’t give an estimate at all without seeing them or very expensive. I live in Wisconsin and am having problems with resources regarding this situation. I don’t know who else to contact. I want to get my cat help with his ear.

Thank you,
Valerie Wild

My dog recently had surgery and I gave her her antibiotic last night while my wife wasn’t home and she woke up this morning and have her another dose because she didn’t realize I had given it last night. It’s 200mg of CEFPODOXIME – proxetil. Is there any cause for concern?

My kitten I think has an abscess it started out as a small lump and it just keeps getting bigger and I need advice on how to treat it at home as I don’t have money to go to vet

I have a 6 year old, female Doberman mix (we rescued her and not sure her exact breed-she is smaller than most Doberman-she is around 44 lbs. About a month ago, she started having accidents in the house, constant urination, and dribbling stream when she actually pees. I thought she probably had a UTI and took her to the vet. They assumed as well she probably had a UTI and gave me a prescription. After ten days on prescription, no change. I went back to vet and told her there had been no change. They started her on Proin. She has been taking this for about 2.5 weeks and there has been no change. When I take her out , she pees about 4 times in a dribble.

They have done blood tests, urinalysis, and x ray. Even after using bathroom twice, her bladder still had urine in it. They are going to send it to a specialist, but we are already about $800 in and no answers. I feel so bad for my girl, because she is embarrassed when she has an accident inside. Any help would be great!

I could really use some advice about my 7 year old cat, Squeak. I posted a comment on Dr. Magnifico’s YouTube video about a cat named Bear that had ear polyp surgery but thought I’d post here, too. I am an emotional wreck right now because yesterday morning I got some very bad news regarding Squeak’s cytology results from a FNA that was done at a specialty hospital. Sadly, my poor boy was diagnosed with malignant melanoma for the 3rd time in two years! I’m heartbroken… The trouble started at the end of December 2022 when I noticed a small lump on his right pinna. My primary vet did a lumpectomy and sent it off to be evaluated. Came back malignant melanoma. Excision was complete with clean but narrow margins. All was well until September 2023 when I found another lump at the base of the same ear. My vet advised me to go for a consultation with an oncologist and it was recommended that Squeak get a TECA-BO done. I was told that this procedure can be “curative” in some cases. The cost was astronomical but I wanted to do the best for my cat. He means the world to me! I began calling specialty vet hospitals to schedule the surgery as soon as possible but none near me were able to fit Squeak in. I finally found one in Pennsylvania and made an appointment for a surgical consultation. The surgery was done on September 25. My boy was a real trooper and recovered well. He did lose the blink reflex in his right eye but it resolved in about 2 weeks with me putting moisturizing drops in his eye daily. I was thrilled with Squeak’s progress and I thought we might have won the fight even though there was no guarantee that he’d be out of the woods now. I had to take money out of my retirement savings to pay for this surgery (it was actually more than $10,000!!) but it was worth it to save my cat’s life. Recently, I noticed that Squeak had been shaking his head and scratching where his incision was. I had an appointment scheduled with my regular vet for a checkup and to get some chest x-rays to make sure all was well. While there, I mentioned about the scratching and head shaking and asked if maybe it was scar tissue causing the reaction. My vet wasn’t concerned and just said “Maybe he feels something.” X-rays were clear and showed nothing concerning. I was told to come back for a recheck in 6 months. However, the symptoms gradually became more frequent and I brought Squeak back to the vet. This time, thinking it might be an infection of some kind, he prescribed Baytril and prednisolone for a course of 2 weeks. There was no improvement and this was very concerning for both the vet and myself. He said that it would be beneficial to get a CT scan to find out what we were dealing with. I was beginning to panic because I had a feeling where all this was leading. I took Squeak to the same hospital where he had his oncology consult. He was examined by a veterinary surgeon first and she did a FNA . Unfortunately, the CT scan could not be done because their machine went down. I got the cytology report yesterday morning. The pathologist’s interpretation was “Lymphocytic proliferation and many atypical multinucleated cells; suspicious for lymph node with metastatic amelanotic melanoma.” The vet that did the FNA said she would consult with an oncologist and get back to me with options for “treatment”. Surgery, radiation and/or chemo was mentioned . Meanwhile, I have been scouring the internet for any information I can get to help me make the right decision about what to do next. I have also posted on numerous cat health forums but only got one response from a vet in Virginia. He said that radiation would be recommended if there was a concern about margins but chemo would not be a good choice for this kind of cancer. He wanted me to keep him posted so I told him about the cytology results. I have not heard back from him yet. Can I please ask for your opinion about all this? I posted this in hopes that Dr. Magnifico would see it because she has done a similar type of surgery for a cat. Can anyone give me some guidance about how I should proceed? I will be discussing this on Monday with my regular vet after he reviews the report that was sent to him. I know I should just calm down but I’m basically a mess! Any information about a way to extend Squeak’s life and keep him comfortable would be SO much appreciated. Thank you!