--Part Two--
What if no spare bathroom or hardwood floor room?
It is ideal to have a separate location where a door can be closed in order to avoid risk and exposure to other animals and environmental contamination in the house. However, there are times when we cannot do the ideal and have to deal with reality of what we have. The most important thing for you to do is keep on top of topical therapy (lime-sulfur) so that the spore release is kept to a minimum. Remember that spore are not ‘air-borne’ but rather ‘hair-borne’ adhering to things like dust and hair. So routinely using things like Swiffer products to continually collect the dust and hair will keep your environmental containment more successful. Also some people feel better about covering the enclosure’s sides and top, just leaving the front open, it helps to keep more dust and debris in the enclosure. Also if you are worried about resident animal exposure, you could always give them a protective sporicidal dip a few times during the foster period.
Is housing cultures at room temperature OK?
Yes, they will grow at room temperature, in a drawer, but depending on how warm or cold your room is, the spores may take longer to inoculate. For instance, I can culture one animal on two different cultures and store one at 85 degrees and one at room temp (70 degrees). I will see the start of growth on the warmer culture starting about day 4-5 and it would probably take until day 7-8 on the room temperature culture. They will yield the same results, but you will get slightly faster ones with it being warmer. In my shelter, I need to check my cultures on day 6 to determine their next steps, so I have found that this works best for our program.
Why 21 days consecutive vs pulsing, OK for smaller than 2 #s
In the presentation I talked about the fact that Itraconazole builds up in the fat layer and kittens do not have that much fat to store the Itraconazole. We found that the 21 consecutive days worked for some kittens that came with minimal lesions, but most of our kittens come in with multiple lesions and the more of a spore load they came in with, the least successful the consecutive day treatment plan was. We are still giving only 21 days, but just splitting it up by week. We also found that pulsing the medication week on/week off helped with some GI upset that sometimes happens at the beginning of treatment. But really, do what works for you. As long as you have some way to confirm they are cured, then keep doing what you are doing. Thank you for treating!
Accel strength for ringworm cleaning
We use 1:16 with a contact time of 5 minutes.
Cleaning cat trees after exposure
Remove cat hair with brush. Apply Accel 1:16, allow to dry in sun (UV rays help kill spores). Use for adult non-contagious housing. Avoid re-using in kitten housing.
Wood’s lamp screening only vs use of cultures
I have worked with a few shelters that use solely Wood’s lamp screening and do not use cultures. I think it is OK, especially if it has been working for you. You just need to be sure that you fully know how to use it. There are some times that my animals are culturally cleared, but upon Wood’s lamp exam, they have an adherence of florescence at the tips of their hairs (kind of looks like fiber optics) and so if you are waiting for the hair to be completely clear of glow, the animal might stay longer in isolation than needed. The Wood’s lamp is a fabulous tool if you know how to use it correctly. With the correct guide and knowledge, I don’t see why you can’t use it as a tool to gage cure. Since my program is large and my administration wants ‘proof’ that the animal is cured, we have to rely on cultures to back up our treatment progress. Cultures are not that pricy, but you need to have staff to interpret it and if you have been successful without the use of them, then save your money and keep saving lives. But if you find that some animals are going through your treatment without being fully cured and then re-infecting themselves and others (in post-adoptive homes or at adoption center), you might be asked to better confirm that the animals are cured before putting up for adoption and then you would want to utilize cultures to back up your treatment plan.
Please continue to ask questions if you have them, I will be checking this forum over the next few days so I do not miss anyone's response.
Thank you!!
-Laura