When we get a cat with a badly inflamed mouth like you described, we send it to be processed by our full service vet who is very aware of the lives and limitations of what can be done with unsocialized community cats. She sedates them and assesses the mouth. Some are worse than others. Sometimes with a steroid shot, antibiotics and a basic dental, the cat will be good for a very long time, especially without the stresses of ongoing mating behaviours. However, if they are much worse than that, a decision may have to be made. If we know that we have an attentive caregiver, which so many of them are, we will treat and return, advising the caregiver to let us know if it starts looking bad again or does not get better. And of course if we need to return, we will. But by and large, many of these cats do better for a very long time. Cats are amazingly resilient. But true Stomatitis will be chronic and may call for some tough decisions to be made. By and large though, we have had good luck treating and returning these cats. We have been using this protocol for 5+ years.
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Samantha Polen
Executive Director
T-Town TNR, Inc.
Tulsa OK
https://www.ttowntnr.com/------------------------------