Rabies vaccine

New Home

I need to vaccinate my cat for travel or he won't be able to travel at all. Unfortunately the vet said that since he's at high risk for injection-site sarcoma, any injection at all would put him at risk of further growths. Does anyone know if there's any form of rabies vaccine that doesn't need to be injected subcutaneously or into the muscle?

westkryveggirl

Hi,

not sure if this helps and if its the same for cats, but for my dog I asked the vet if we could do the rabies injection in a back leg rather than the neck so that if, god forbid, a problem arose from it in the future, its better to be able to amputate a leg than not save the animal. Potentially much more of a problem if the injection site is in the neck and a problem develops. I know this sounds extreme, but I was just trying to foresee and protect my dog in case of worst case scenario developing in the future.
Not sure of your cats specific condition or the details of them being at specific risk or the implications of that, so your case may be different; my dog is not, other than her breed, but just wanted to offer this in case it helps.

I dont know how sarcoma works either though and whether it stays localized or not; if not, maybe this isnt helpful, but just wanted to share the info.

New Home

Thanks for that - I was thinking along similar lines, that in a worst case scenario I'd get him vaccinated on the tail, but I was hoping there might have been a lesser-known version of the vaccine out there (maybe something that is known in some countries but not others and that can be legally imported, at a push).

westkryveggirl

actually yeah tail is even better..not sure why we didnt do that with the dog....tail is more disposable than a leg for sure.

if nooone is able to help here id post in some of the natural pet health type groups on fb. and also there is a homeopathic vet in cork that seems like he might be up on things like this--not saying you need homeopathics (although we did dose with lyssin or thuja forget which) after on the off chance it helps reduce vaccine reaction even though i dont really "get" homeopathy. But in any case he seems knowledgeable about stuff, i wonder if he would know this.

DBB

^^^ That's Tom Farrington. An absolute gem. I have no stall whatsoever in homoeopathy, but Tom's knowledge on general holistic health stuff is bottomless, so he may be worth popping an email off to.

New Home

Thanks folks. I really do hate having to put the cat through hell for the sake of a trip, but I've very few options left.

westkryveggirl

Yeah, DBB, I didnt know if it was ok to post names here, I guess it is! Anyway I pm'ed the contact info. I havent ever met him, only spoke to him on the phone once and he was very helpful to me at the time, hoping to get my dog down to him sometime this summer regarding a possible preventative for something we spoke about. But yes he just seemed like he was really knowledgeable and might know if there were other options.

muddypaws

Are you just travelling within the EU? If outside of that and you need titre tests after the vaccination, be aware that a lot of tests come back negative and the vaccination has to be redone - sometimes multiple times

New Home

No, thankfully it's just within the EU. And thankfully they changed the requirements in 2013, because I travelled with a different cat in 2011 (still within the EU) and it was as bad as you mention.