Have you ever seen ringworm in cats? Kittens along with immature pets usually are highly susceptible to this specific infection because their body’s defense mechanism is weak.
Ringworm in a cat is caused by microsporum canins. sometimes called M canis. It is one of the many dermatophytes or fungus infections that are responsible for different types of ringworm infections. Even so, M canis isn’t only a threat for one’s cute pets. Various other dermotophytes that are obtained from rodents and mice – M persicolor and Trichophyton mentagrophytes – exist.
Your kitten can also pick up certain germs from the soil including To terrestre, M gypseum and others.
Just how do your tiny pets collect most of these bugs? They gather spores which can live in the surroundings for many months without dying.
When they stick to the animal’s hair and skin they sprout and give rise to hyphae which often start the infection. As outlined by research findings the long haired cat breed is more vulnerable than a shorthaired species. After becoming infected all kittens and cats do not necessarily experience comparable changes in appearance. Some of them are severely impacted and one look at all of them is enough to indicate that they want immediate medical aid.
Others do not appear sick at all and so they many not show any visible signs. Still a few pet cats develop tiny skin lesions that almost appear harmless. All the same, a normal skin ring appears to be hairless and it mostly forms on the cats ears and paws, in addition to head. The patches on the hairless skin appears very rough and scaly and if severely infected by the fungus they might look inflamed.
Kittens may go through pruritus, or itch, but this depends on the degree of infection due to the germs that have brought it on. There are other epidermis diseases that can influence your pets which are just like ringworm in pet cats.
What this means is that you are very likely to treat the wrong illness if you decide not to take the cat to the vet. They can carry out this woods lamp test that is normally carried out really dark room. Should the M.canis be present in the cat’s hair, it will turn apple-green. That’s not a definitive diagnosis though. The hair extracted from the cat can nevertheless be useful in carrying out other laboratory checks.
That brings me to another location method used to detect ringworm inside a cat – microscopic examination.
The laboratory mycologist looks for spores and other fungal elements in the hair sample. Drawing any conclusion is still complicated as a negative result may not automatically show that the cat has no ringworm-causing microorganism. Yeast culture is one of the very reliable methods of analysis for ringworm in cats used today. The vet collects inflamed hairs just near the patches. They are then used in culture to see what grows. The report can require a week or two to come out and, when it does, the vet recommends the correct steps to take.
Tagged with: cat breed • fungus infections • pet cat • pet cats • ringworm in cats • ringworm infections • skin lesions • the cat • the vet
Filed under: Cat Health
