Toxoplasmosis

Irish Stones

One of my cats has been recently diagnosed with toxoplasmosis.
It happened before, in 2008, and we treated her with clindamycin antibiotic for 25 days and all went well, she was tested again at the end and she resulted negative.
Now she's ill again and we are treating her again with the same antibiotic.
I thought that toxoplasmosis could only be taken once in a life, but my vet says that pets and humans can be affected several times in their life if exposed to the parasite. The same thing was told me by another vet, but a third vet said that once you had it you don't get it anymore.
This version of this story is in contrast with what is happening to my cat now.
I can't find enough info on the web.
Could anybody explain the truth to me, please?

yellowlabrador

Toxoplasmosis is a funny one, some people and animals never develop antibodies and if you have an impaired immune system you sometimes have to have a low dose antibiotic for life. I know, because we have several members in the family in that position. So you vet is right.
I'm in that position with rubella, I've had the vaccine 3 times and actual illness as a child, yet every blood test comes back as no antibodies.

FoxyVixen

So far as I know, toxoplasmosis can be carried several times throughout a lifetime, particularly in cats/sheep. Whilst it's treatable, that doesn't mean an individual can't become infected again, more so their body may be capable of harbouring the parasite without becoming badly sick/affected by it. Though in sheep/people even, should they contract the parasite when pregnant, it's most likely the foetus won't survive.

Hard to eradicate as it's an environmental problem at large.

Irish Stones

Thanks Yellowlabrador, Thanks FoxyVixen!
In no time I know more about it!
So it's likely that my cat is in the condition that her immune system is unable to develop antibodies for this parasite.
I know that toxoplasmosis can sometimes show no symptoms, so it's possible that my cat could have contracted the illness again in the past and we didn't realized.
This time we noticed a sudden loss of weight, but all the rest is normal, she eats (too much!), plays, sleeps, uses the litter regurarly, and does all the things a cat does.
We hope the cure will be effective.
Thanks for your quick contribution!

FoxyVixen

Sounds like you may have a population of rodents/birds who are infected which means it'll be a very difficult parasite to eradicate. The cycle isn't being broken which means it's most likely continued since the cat was first infected. The cat may have an underlying infection causing the effects to be more noticeable this time round - perhaps a worm burden?

Just maintain caution yourselves handling the cat and clean the litter box (if indoors) daily using gloves. Remove any faeces in the garden using gloves and a scooper too.

Irish Stones

I have two cats, they both live indoors and are let free to wander in the garden only with a lead and a harness because the road in front of the house can be dangerous.
So it's very unlikely they are able to hunt preys or catch birds or mice. What they can do is chasing some lizards or some insects that fly right above the grass.
But they can chew some grass where it's possible that some other wandering cats left the parasites. And I think this is how she got the toxoplasmosis.

So it's possible that we (me and my wife) got the same infection without noticing it, or maybe not. I clean the litter boxes twice a day and of course I always wash my hands thoroughly afterwards. I wash them completely only every two weeks.

FoxyVixen

Without trying to sound OCD, if the cat has brought toxoplasmosis into the house, I'd be completely cleaning the litter tray more often in an attempt to reduce the amount of oocysts in the house.

Frustrating if the cat has contracted the parasite off grass, little I can think of to help regarding that unfortunately.

Irish Stones

I agree that cleaning the boxes much more often would be a great improvement in the war against the parasites, but this means that ideally I should clean and wash them once a day... doing it less frequently, say every three or five days, wouldn't be much different than doing it every two weeks, because the oocysts would be transferred around the house anyway.

I also know that oocysts have a short life-cycle outside a host body, so if I'd keep the cats indoor for a long time I could avoid the reiterate the infection.

Fortunately the other cat seems to be totally immune to the toxoplasmosis, must have a strong immune system.

FoxyVixen

It's a tough war you're fighting All the best with it and let us know how you get on with it.

Irish Stones

Of course I will.
We're at the end of the first week of antibiotics, twice a day. Two more weeks and we are over. We'll test the cat again and know if we win
Thanks a lot!

yellowlabrador

Maybe you can ask the vet for a low dose antibiotic that you can give every week? for humans, there's a specific drug that they need to take daily.

anniehoo

yellowlabrador wrote: »

Toxoplasmosis is a funny one, some people and animals never develop antibodies and if you have an impaired immune system you sometimes have to have a low dose antibiotic for life.

Yeah, Toxo is a really annoying one. It can be gotten from unwashed veg and undercooked pork as well as ingestion of cat faeces.

It's estimated that a third of the WORLDs population test seropositive for Toxo.Western Europe is low on the list.

OP, do you know what tests your vet has done? Doing just a normal serology test (presence of antibodies) is only going to tell you whether your cat has been exposed. It gets a bit more complex with immunology and if you get a seropositive all the time it won't tell you if it's an active infection. Your vet needs to do an IgM/IgG test and then further PCR. IgM means basically whether it's an active infection or not.

Your vet also needs to do a general blood panel to see how his overall immune system is doing.As cats are the main host, they need a healthy host, so my gut is there is something other than Toxo at play as it will only affect your cat if it's immune system is weakened.

yellowlabrador wrote: »

Maybe you can ask the vet for a low dose antibiotic that you can give every week? for humans, there's a specific drug that they need to take daily.

Clindamycin is the drug of choice, but if this a long term issue then he may be building resistance and something like "Spiromycin" (there's a few others) should be looked at.

Irish Stones

yellowlabrador wrote: »

Maybe you can ask the vet for a low dose antibiotic that you can give every week? for humans, there's a specific drug that they need to take daily.

I will ask her as soon as I have the chance, which could be in a very few days.
Thanks for the advice.

Irish Stones

anniehoo wrote: »

OP, do you know what tests your vet has done? Doing just a normal serology test (presence of antibodies) is only going to tell you whether your cat has been exposed. It gets a bit more complex with immunology and if you get a seropositive all the time it won't tell you if it's an active infection. Your vet needs to do an IgM/IgG test and then further PCR. IgM means basically whether it's an active infection or not.

I know that they tested the serum. I know that because the first general panel test showed nothing, but then my vet called the lab and asked them if they still had some serum from my cat left, and they still had it and tested it and in a few hours we got the result of an IgG at 1:1620.
I can't remember how high it was 5 years ago, but it wasn't that high. What I remember, though, is that after the treatment we tested the cat again and the IgM/IgG told us that the infection had been there, but it had gone. I am not able to tell you more about that.

Your vet also needs to do a general blood panel to see how his overall immune system is doing.As cats are the main host, they need a healthy host, so my gut is there is something other than Toxo at play as it will only affect your cat if it's immune system is weakened.

As I wrote above, the first purpose of the test was to see if the general health conditions af the cat were good, and the only parameters out of range were the cholesterol (which has always been high in my cat as she eats a lot and eats almost anything she finds) and the serum calcium which was 0.1 above the high limit of the range. About this my vet said not to worry too much at the moment and test it again in two or three months time.
So, because everything looked alright she thought of testing the serum for the Toxo, and so we found it.
I was surprised because I knew my cat had it before, so I asked the vet if it was possible to get twice or more and she said yes. A second vet that I happened to talk about it two days later and who doesn't know my vet, told me the same thing. The third vet I talked to about this matter told me that Toxo can only hit once.
My cats are regurarly vaccinated for FeLV and for herpesvirus, calicivirus and panleukopenia.
More, they are threated with Bayer Advocate monthly from April through October.

Clindamycin is the drug of choice, but if this a long term issue then he may be building resistance and something like "Spiromycin" (there's a few others) should be looked at.

I will keep it in mind if the next test gives us a wrong response.
Thanks a lot for your very informative post.
How do you know all these things? Are you a vet or a doctor?