As a responsible pet parent, you need to consider various factors that will enhance your pet’s wellbeing. Besides offering your cat or kitten the right food, you’ll also need to take steps to ensure that they’re healthy.
While you would not want to imagine the worst for your cat, it’s obvious that, just like any other member of your family, your cat can become ill. Unfortunately, most pet parents wait until this fateful incident happens to think about pet medicine.
Besides, water, food, and litter, the thought of keeping your cat healthy should be a priority. Among other things, it’s imperative to ensure that your cats are free from fleas and other conditions that would require your cat to require antibiotics.
Even so, you shouldn’t go wrong if you ever find yourself looking for antibiotics for your cat. In this post, you’ll learn more about antibiotics for cats. Read along to learn more.
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Bacterial Infections in Cats
As with humans, cats are at risk of various infectious organisms. Even so, with the increased number of antibiotics and multi-resistant bacterial infections, care should be taken when choosing the right antibiotics for your cat.
While culture and sensitivity testing should determine the choice of antibiotic, this is not always the case. Most often, your veterinarian will prescribe antibiotics for your cat based on the organisms available at the infected area and the content of the antibiotic.
How Do Antibiotics Work?
Antibiotics eliminate the harmful cells in your cat’s body without impacting on the healthy ones. Some antibiotics can inhibit reproduction by preventing bacteria from building cell walls. Others work by preventing the bacterium from changing glucose into energy and thus starving them.
A good example of the best antibiotic for cats is Cephalexin. Cephalexin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic for cats and is effective in treating common bacterial infections in cats, including bone, skin, urinary, and respiratory tract infections.
The active ingredient in Cephalexin is Cephalosporin. It helps destroy bacteria by preventing peptidoglycan from synthesizing the bacterial cell wall.
Without proper care and treatment, viruses and bacterial infections can cause various diseases in your cat. As with antibacterial medications, antiviral drugs don’t necessarily kill the virus – they work to prevent the virus from reproducing and growing, which will enhance the death of the virus.
Cephalexin comes in either capsules or suspension. Besides treating infections in your cat’s body, Cephalexin can prevent secondary infections. However, you’ll need a prescription from your veterinarian to use it.
Consult your vet immediately you notice the rash, shortness of breath, vomiting, hives, and diarrhea after giving Cephalexin to your cat. You should also be concerned if you notice swelling of the face, lip, or tongue, or blood in the stool.
To avoid more severe after giving Cephalexin to your cat, let your vet know about any allergic reaction to other medications such as penicillin. Discuss with your vet if your dog has an intestinal disease or kidney disease. You should also let your vet know if your cat is pregnant or lactating. This way, your vet will put all things into consideration before administering Cephalexin to your pet.
Other common antibiotics for cats include:
Amoxicillin
Amoxicillin is a household name when thinking about antibiotics for humans. Well, it appears it can also be used in cats as well. However, before you use it on your cat, it’s imperative to know that there’s a unique way to give them to your cat which is different from how we use them.
Various factors, including body sizes, internal systems, and different biologies will determine the amount of medicine right for your cat.
While you can use amoxicillin to treat various infections like urinary tract infections, you should stop giving it to your pet if you notice signs of diarrhea and vomiting and contact your vet immediately.
Gentamicin
Gentamicin is another common antibiotic for cats. Gentamicin is available for prescription only and can be used to treat a wide range of bacterial infections. However, you shouldn’t use it if your cat is dehydrated or has a fever.
Are There Any Natural Remedies for Bacterial Infections?
While antibiotics like Cephalexin can help treat a wide range of infections, some pet parents would prefer to use natural antibiotics to treat bacterial infections in cats.
Well, some natural products such as yarrow and chamomile have shown to be effective in treating wounds and digestive pain. However, you should be careful when using such products on your cat. Ideally, they should not substitute medications and treatments from your vet. Talking to your vet should be the first thing when you suspect anything wrong in your cat’s health.
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