Newborn allergic to cat

RiseToMe

Hi all,

We have a three legged cat for the last 8 years, pure white with a sensitive tummy so is on ZD food from the vet and is very loved despite her being a typical independent standoff-ish cat.

However, we welcomed our baby girl into the world six weeks ago and long story short, they've come to the conclusion that she has a cat allergy. We have tried everything, an air purifier, floors hoovered and washed every day, baby gate on the room she sleeps in (3 legged cat can't jump!). We were not convinced it was the cat so took the baby away for four days and low and behold her wheezy chest cleared up lots and sniffles and sneezing went, come back home and within the day it was back full force.

Logic suggests we ask somebody to take the cat but both families parents only spend part of the year here and friends either live in rented accommodation and/or travel frequently with work for several days at a time.

It looks like our only option is to try a shelter, but I really want to meet the people she'll end up with as she is so very special to us both, does anybody know if this is possible? Also I'm upset by the idea of this as she's not a fan of other cats and of course she's going to be surrounded by them, is there consideration given to this?

Super hard considering this as our only option so please don't jump down my throat, we really have to consider the discomfort our little girl is in too as heartbreaking as it is.

FishOnABike

You could try putting your cat into a cattery to stay a few days and realy vacuum and clean the house to remove any fur and dander to see if your baby's symptoms go away. If they do, and return when your cat return that would point to an allergy.

If it is an allergy it might be enough to keep your cat to rooms your baby would not be in. otherwise you could rehome your cat yourselves or rehome your cat through a local charity.

RiseToMe

FishOnABike wrote: »

You could try putting your cat into a cattery to stay a few days and realy vacuum and clean the house to remove any fur and dander to see if your baby's symptoms go away. If they do, and return when your cat return that would point to an allergy.

If it is an allergy it might be enough to keep your cat to rooms your baby would not be in. otherwise you could rehome your cat yourselves or rehome your cat through a local charity.

We took the baby away to a cat free house and her symptoms cleared up and came back when we returned. We live in an apartment atm so keeping the cat out of any baby rooms would mean confining her entirely to one bedroom which isn't fair on her.

Regarding rehoming ourselves, is there a website to do it on? We have tried all family and friends but it's not viable for them for the reasons outlined in the first post, it wouldve been our preference as we would then get to see her occasionally at least.

tk123

Are you grooming the cat? I'm allergic to dander myself but managed fine with my cat as long as I brushed him regularly. I have 2 golden retrievers now which shed a billion times more hair than the cat ever did lol but keep them well groomed and give them fish oils etc and all good.

I'd get the baby tested too at some stage - in case there's anything else she's allergic too that you haven't discovered yet with her being so young.

RiseToMe

tk123 wrote: »

Are you grooming the cat? I'm allergic to dander myself but managed fine with my cat as long as I brushed him regularly. I have 2 golden retrievers now which shed a billion times more hair than the cat ever did lol but keep them well groomed and give them fish oils etc and all good.

I'd get the baby tested too at some stage - in case there's anything else she's allergic too that you haven't discovered yet with her being so young.

She's been tested but only for foods unfortunately, she's off dairy from week 1 which seen other symptoms clear right up and we had hoped her chest would clear too but nothing but removing her from the apartment worked for that

Cat is groomed everyday out on the balcony either morning or evening with the door closed, but she has a seriously dense coat that's long too. Have been doing this for years tho as she's snow white so her hair shows everywhere.

Air purifier follows us around the apartment with the baby to try ease it, hoovering every morning and washing the floors, most days a second hoover in the evening. Cat stays entirely at floor level, never up on couch etc.

Bigus

I would have been, first to say , get rid of the cat ,
However I was allergic to my parents "house ", which I didn't realise until I got married , so maybe investigate the house first, especially if it's an old structure.

RiseToMe

Bigus wrote: »

I would have been, first to say , get rid of the cat ,
However I was allergic to my parents "house ", which I didn't realise until I got married , so maybe investigate the house first, especially if it's an old structure.

Not old at all, new apartment built in last few years with all new furniture too.

aonb

very tricky for you OP, loved pet, but allergic baby. You have the added difficulty of your cat being anti-other-cat, and her disability, 3legs+tummy, maybe putting someone off. On the other hand, the fact that she is 3 legged, might make someone feel sorry for her, and take her on.

In any case, the biggest problem is that the shelters and rescues are absolutely overrun with cats (and dogs and everything else) so I think your only option is going to be to rehome this cat yourself. Somehow. Ads in local vets, cattery, pet shops, supermarkets, shops, care of the aged centre (if its a friendly enough cat for an older person to enjoy having a lap-cat?) etc.

To be really honest with you unless you can find a friend or someone through your family/friends network, to take your cat on, rehoming an older cat, with issues, is going to be really difficult. Obviously your baby's health is paramount, difficult decisions ahead ...

RiseToMe

aonb wrote: »

very tricky for you OP, loved pet, but allergic baby. You have the added difficulty of your cat being anti-other-cat, and her disability, 3legs+tummy, maybe putting someone off. On the other hand, the fact that she is 3 legged, might make someone feel sorry for her, and take her on.

In any case, the biggest problem is that the shelters and rescues are absolutely overrun with cats (and dogs and everything else) so I think your only option is going to be to rehome this cat yourself. Somehow. Ads in local vets, cattery, pet shops, supermarkets, shops, care of the aged centre (if its a friendly enough cat for an older person to enjoy having a lap-cat?) etc.

To be really honest with you unless you can find a friend or someone through your family/friends network, to take your cat on, rehoming an older cat, with issues, is going to be really difficult. Obviously your baby's health is paramount, difficult decisions ahead ...

Extremely difficult yes, there is a lot of pressure from the PHN to have the cat gone asap with an entire lack of empathy, even suggesting that we just get her PTS.

Neither family is particularly big so there isn't a long list of possible folk, we have offered to pay for her food and continue with her insurance etc. A girl used to take her for our holidays (sadly moved to London now!) who had a dog and they got on fine, the presumption is she doesn't like other cats as she has encountered a few on our enclosed ground floor balcony and lost the plot entirely.

We had hoped that our daughter would react well to any of the interventions but five weeks in and the only break she got was being away.

All honestly heartbreaking as she great with the baby, always first to come running (hobbling!) down if she cries and waits outside the baby gate til she's settled. Ugh.

andreac

Oh god, that's tough. As an owner of 4 dogs and my first baby on the way, this would be my worst nightmare.

Is there any way to restrict the cat to a certain area only and minimise where the cat would be around the baby? What about building a little outdoor cat run type thing?
Im sure it's going to be a last resort giving away your beloved pet.

tk123

I'd board the cat for a week or so to be sure it's not something in the apartment - for the simple fact I had a GP telling me I was allergic to my dog when I knew 100% I wasn't lol! Long enough to clean the place from top to bottom and make sure there's no stray hair/dander and be sure there's an improvement.

What a nightmare for you OP!

A lot of new research around allergies is pointing to lack of exposure to allergens as a child, evidence shows that children exposed to more allergens and bacteria in their homes during the first year of life may be less likely to suffer from allergies, wheezing and asthma later on.

About 41 percent of the kids who were both wheeze- and allergy-free lived in homes that were teeming with allergens and bacteria. On the other hand, just 8 percent of the kids who had both allergies and wheezing problems had been in regular contact with various allergens and bacteria, according to the study.


The study authors also found that the children in the study who were exposed to all three types of allergens — from cats, cockroaches and mice — had a lower risk of allergies, wheezing and asthma at age 3 compared with those who were exposed to only one or two of these allergens.

https://www.livescience.com/46151-early-exposure-allergens-children-allergy-risk.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/05/children-need-peanuts-early-age-prevent-allergy-new-guidance/

Now obviously there is a limit to this, if you child is really suffering and showing no sign of improvement then it's hard to see the cat being able to stay with you

RiseToMe

I'm all for exposure but the lack of improvement is worrying us both, six week old wheezy baby is very hard to just play wait and see with.

I'd happily build an outdoor run but she's always been indoors with us so wouldn't last, she does have access to the balcony all day (which is ground floor and entirely enclosed and she can't jump as it's a rear missing leg so can't get over it).

Really is worse nightmare tbh. Have once again sent messages to all we know to see if there's anybody that can take her so we can know how she is and still see her. She's not demanding at all, utterly miss independent just loves her belly rubs when you come home.

Thanks for feedback so far, rather than board her I'll see if parents are due a spell at home and can take her for a week and get a deep clean done.

Knine

My daughter has a dog allergy. So now my dogs spent a bit more time outside then they used to. One dog in particular causes the problems. If it was me I would consider building the outdoor pen and see how it goes. The cat might well surprise you. Also it could well be something in the apartment. My daughter gets a daily dose of antihistimines as she also has hay fever.

ShaShaBear

I would agree that taking her to a cat-free home isn't the best way to determine allergy. Better you get the cat into a cattery or at someone else's house for a week. Do a deep clean on the first day and see how things go. If your baby remains symptom free until the cat arrives back, then you have your answer. If her problems persist after a few days with no cat there, then there is something else in the house causing an issue.

PHNs can be extremely insensitive to families with pets, despite the oodles of research pointing towards happier, healthier babies in pet households. And GPs can be VERY quick to throw the allergy card. Last thing you would want is to rehome your cat only to discover your child still has an allergy.

RiseToMe

Our cat is off to her grandparents and the great deep clean starts tomorrow, going to have her gone a week and see where we're at then

Pseudorandom

RiseToMe wrote: »

Our cat is off to her grandparents and the great deep clean starts tomorrow, going to have her gone a week and see where we're at then

Fingers crossed for you!

If it does turn out that it's just not possible to keep the cat because of allergies you should email a few shelters and ask them to advertise her for you in the same way that they would advertise cats or kittens being fostered. They might even do vettings etc for you.

kukkanen

Best of luck, keep us posted how it goes. Maybe we can find her a home if needed.

Ms Doubtfire1

Best of luck - let us know. :-)

RiseToMe

So far steam cleaned each room, replaced the curtains in the room that had them (rest have wooden blinds).

Any material things have been steamed or replaced where possible including lamp shades!

Will continue the deep clean and update when she comes home. You'd miss her little inquisitive noises around the place

aonb

Fingers crossed for you OP. So sad to think your cat is causing a reaction in your new baby. It would be nice if the baby could build up a tolerance to the cat... but at least now, you will know for sure if its the cat thats the problem. I hope its something in the house causing the problem No matter what you do/decide when you know for sure, you will have done your best for your little cat. We're all rooting her for your cat, so do keep us posted. Hope your baby is feeling better soon too.

RiseToMe

So she was gone for two weeks and we absolutely scoured the apartment and she's back less then 24 hours and babies sneezing and discomfort etc has started again.

I'm going to start the process of calling shelters to help rehome her in the next few days. Heartbroken.

elperello

Too bad, sorry for you.

Zapperzy

RiseToMe wrote: »

So she was gone for two weeks and we absolutely scoured the apartment and she's back less then 24 hours and babies sneezing and discomfort etc has started again.

I'm going to start the process of calling shelters to help rehome her in the next few days. Heartbroken.

Heartbreaking decision but you've done all you can. I'v two cats and I don't envy your situation :-(

volchitsa

I think with a newborn or tiny baby you have no choice really, sad as that is.
Hopefully you'll find some to take her. Best of luck OP.

andreac

Oh no, sorry to hear about this. Such a sad situation to be in.

Lemonposset

What a sad situation to be in but unfortunately you really don't have much of an option. I love cats and grew up with several but developed an allergy in my teens and now if I touch a cat my eyes will water uncontrolably and I sneeze like mad and often my airways and breathing will be affected with swelling, blocked nose and wheeze. Babies breathe through their noses so your poor baba will find it hard to breathe properly if she has any of these symptoms and feeding will be difficult too. Also, babies airways are much much smaller than adults and the smallest bit of swelling makes it difficult for them to get oxygen. This is something that could become life-threatening very quickly. Hopefully you find a home you're happy with asap but your priority is the baby's health not the cats

brightspark

Have you tried giving the cat a bath at least weekly?

I had no memory but the family cat at the time had weekly baths (a tabby from recollection) because I was allergic to him.

Must have been a very docile cat!

RiseToMe

brightspark wrote: »

Have you tried giving the cat a bath at least weekly?

I had no memory but the family cat at the time had weekly baths (a tabby from recollection) because I was allergic to him.

Must have been a very docile cat!

Thanks for the idea but this cat would have an absolute fit if we bathed her! We had to do it when she was kitten and learning to just have the three legs she'd fall over in her litter tray, but she never got used to it. Recently enough she did it again and we had to bath her and she got systitis from the stress!

volchitsa

I was told that too about bathing cats, but we never managed to get our cats used to it, despite trying.

I think you need to do it from when they're small. Our mother cat never let us, she was a young adult when we got her, and then when we tried with her kittens, maybe they were too small I don't know. In any case, they got sick and we had to take them to the vet! We gave up after that, and the kids didn't seem to react anyway so it wasn't a problem in the end, which was lucky.

RiseToMe

Guys sorry for dragging up my old thread but we tried numerous avenues, and had a home lined up but it's fallen through as they went with a kitten. In the meantime the little ones allergies are just getting worse and it's affecting her feeding now as shes miserable from sneezing and coughing. Unfortunately we need to look very seriously at the PTS option, but before I call the vet does anybody know if they will actually do this for a healthy animal?

I know the easy answer is call and ask but please appreciate it's very upsetting for us so I want to have as much information about how the call may go before ringing later.

frash

RiseToMe wrote: »

Guys sorry for dragging up my old thread but we tried numerous avenues, and had a home lined up but it's fallen through as they went with a kitten. In the meantime the little ones allergies are just getting worse and it's affecting her feeding now as shes miserable from sneezing and coughing. Unfortunately we need to look very seriously at the PTS option, but before I call the vet does anybody know if they will actually do this for a healthy animal?

I know the easy answer is call and ask but please appreciate it's very upsetting for us so I want to have as much information about how the call may go before ringing later.

<snip> might take her in for future adoption rather than PTS?

RiseToMe

frash wrote: »

<snip> might take her in for future adoption rather than PTS?

Thank you. When we last got in touch they were reluctant to take her but I did email them yesterday to enquire again. We have another visit for progress next week from the nurse and she wants us to have a plan in place so need to have all avenues covered. Thanks again

frash

There's a rehome request thread here too - you might get lucky

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055626371&page=47

loveisdivine

OP I hate to think of this poor cat having it's life ended through no fault of it's own. We already have 3 cats and don't really have the resources to try and integrate a third. I would think about keeping her temporarily set up in our garage, but that's not ideal.

I'll keep thinking and see if I can come up with anything.

RiseToMe

frash wrote: »

There's a rehome request thread here too - you might get lucky

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055626371&page=47

Thanks I'll try and get something up there ASAP

RiseToMe

loveisdivine wrote: »

OP I hate to think of this poor cat having it's life ended through no fault of it's own. We already have 3 cats and don't really have the resources to try and integrate a third. I would think about keeping her temporarily set up in our garage, but that's not ideal.

I'll keep thinking and see if I can come up with anything.

I know, it's heartbreaking as she is very loved and very much part of our family. The idea of it feels wrong and horrific and I don't know how well we'll cope with the effect of it of it comes to it, there was such relief when we thought we'd found her a home. But unfortunately, she's making our little girl sicker by the day so our hand is being forced as we can't have that either. Horrible.

em_cat

RiseToMe wrote: »

I know, it's heartbreaking as she is very loved and very much part of our family. The idea of it feels wrong and horrific and I don't know how well we'll cope with the effect of it of it comes to it, there was such relief when we thought we'd found her a home. But unfortunately, she's making our little girl sicker by the day so our hand is being forced as we can't have that either. Horrible.

Hi Op, is your cat use to dogs?

RiseToMe

em_cat wrote: »

Hi Op, is your cat use to dogs?

Yes her first Foster home before we took her had dogs and she lived with a dog for a year when I lived away and my wife moved to her parents temporarily several years ago.

aonb

OP, I feel very sorry for you. You have done your very best with your beloved pet. Your baby's health is obviously too important to mess about with.

But at the end of the day, though this will probably be an unpopular sentiment, if all else fails, I for one believe that putting an animal to sleep rather than having it dumped or unwanted is far kinder to the animal. There are so many unwanted animals in the country. I help at a shelter, and its full to bursting point 365 days/year.

Dont beat yourself up, if you have exhausted every avenue to rehome your cat. Putting it to sleep, while its a terrible situation, at least your poor cat isnt going to suffer in any way.

ShaShaBear

aonb wrote: »

OP, I feel very sorry for you. You have done your very best with your beloved pet. Your baby's health is obviously too important to mess about with.

But at the end of the day, though this will probably be an unpopular sentiment, if all else fails, I for one believe that putting an animal to sleep rather than having it dumped or unwanted is far kinder to the animal. There are so many unwanted animals in the country. I help at a shelter, and its full to bursting point 365 days/year.

Dont beat yourself up, if you have exhausted every avenue to rehome your cat. Putting it to sleep, while its a terrible situation, at least your poor cat isnt going to suffer in any way.

At the sincere risk of upsetting anyone, I've been present when cats were put to sleep, and in the majority of cases, everyone in the room suffered. Cats aren't as trusting as dogs, and tend to cop it immediately.

It's a horrible situation OP. I would try to get the word out as far and wide as possible, contact every shelter (including places like <snip>) and all of the vets in the area. They may know someone who can help and they'll be happy to put a poster up on their noticeboard. Put a post on facebook and get it shared as much as possible. You could even try contacting a radio station (Ray Darcy's old show on Today FM would have been good for something like this). It is heartbreaking, but I would exhaust every option before deciding to PTS. There must be someone out there who could take her. Best of luck OP.

floraldream

Or even Joe Duffy could be an option, he had a call on awhile ago looking for a foster home for a dog and plenty of people offered.

Cherry Blossom

Just a reminder that naming or recommending rescues on thread is not permitted in this forum. That's twice now rescues have had to be edited out in this thread. Please respect this rule.

RiseToMe

Thanks for the posts. I won't address all individually, neither of us nor family have Facebook but we have had a constant churn of messages to literally our entire phone books. Emails have gone put across both our workplaces also and we contacted all the rescues we could think of but they wanted us to keep her and told us they would be in touch if they found anybody.

I'll try the radio avenues tomorrow, unfortunately we're time limited to when the phn arrives again, as it was she was expecting her to be gone this time around (and she was actually supposed to be the day before but that fell through.

Kablamo!

I'm sure if you supplied some details and pictures on the rehoming thread someone could spread it around on Facebook for you?

RiseToMe

Kablamo! wrote: »

I'm sure if you supplied some details and pictures on the rehoming thread someone could spread it around on Facebook for you?

Hoping to get to that soon - only have Internet access on mobile at the moment so can't do the pictures etc but should be able to get something done at the weekend

Kablamo!

Yeah, trying that is preferable to the alternative.