Surprise! It's ringworm.

You may remember a few months ago when I wrote a post on introducing a raw food diet to the cats. The reason was, of course, that I was killing my cats slowly and deliberately by feeding them dry kibble (or at least that's how the holistic people made me feel).

So we tried it.

You may recall that the entire reason we switched to raw food is because Sasha was diagnosed with a food allergy. That's what was causing her itchy ears they said.

This was only after they also diagnosed her with earmites, fleas, an ear infection and my favorite, an auto immune disorder.

Sasha was subjected to ear scrapes and steroid shots, antihistamine treatment and antibiotics. I had to supplment her food with probiotics because her stomach was so out of whack. She was forced to wear the cone of shame (which, if you're Sasha is the ultimate low. The only thing she would wear on her head is a tiny crown). Throughout all of this she never got better, she was worse. Everytime we would leave and come back she had torn a new new hole in her face because the scratching was so bad. It literally broke your heart to look at her.

Now here's what really makes me upset. When I first approached the vet about Sasha's issues I told them, I think she has ringworm. I had used my google images search and I was pretty confident she was a match. So what does the vet ask me?

"Well did you see a long white worm?"

"Uh, no?" Which is when I immediately started to doubt myself. Stupid me, there is no worm with ringworm. It's a fungus for goodness sakes. But I trusted the vet because, come on, they're the vet! We then administered a whole slew of tests for which I had to pay the appropriate bills. When I didn't hear back about any of the results I switched vets. I had been feeling like this vet was taking advanage of me for awhile (since yes, I was in there once a week with various animals). And wouldn't you know, even though I had been in there so often they still couldn't learn my name? My bank knows my name for crying out loud! I digress.

So I switched vets but I was still convinced because I had never seen a worm she didn't have ringworm. So she went through a few more diagnoses. Finally, we had it. Mom was visiting and Sasha was just getting worse. We took a black light to Sasha and saw little flourescent rings. The next day at the feed store we bought some over the counter ringworm medication and almost overnight she got better. But not cured. I think by that time she was to far gone. So I went back to the (new) vet and told them, look, my cat has ringworm, please just treat her. They made me pay for skin scrapes and ringworm tests again (which, come to think of it I haven't heard the results on) before they would give me the antibiotic. It had to be mixed at a compounding pharmacy.

And so, one month later Sasha is better. I still get angry when I think about everything we put her through. And I get more angry that I didn't stick to my guns. And then I get even more angry when I think about how my vet has milked charge after charge out of me for the past few years...but that's neither here nor there. The moral of the story is, Sasha is better and she had ringworm.

Oh, and as if we weren't positive. Mom went home from her trip here with a bad case of ringworm (oops). I don't know why the handsome man and I never got it. Probably our superior immune systems from living on the farm (ha!)