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ringworm

Sent to Pet Experts May 6 2004 at 10:57 AM
   

was wondering if a cat has body mites and was scraped and seen could it cause a ringworm culture to show up positive? we have no other signs of ringworm and i have daycare around but i culture said looks positve. my vet choose to treat only with tresaderm. will not give me anything else. the cat is 7 months old,

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May 6 2004 at 1:10 PM (2 hours and 12 minutes and 30 seconds later)
         
REPLIEDCheck Mark

 It is pretty easy to confuse several other diseases with mite infestation, including atopy,food allergies, ringworm, bacterial skin infections and flea allergy dermatitis. If the mites clear up but the problem doesn't it would be a good idea to consider the possibility that there is a secondary infection. Persistent mite infestation may be associated with FLV or FIV. If treatment isn't successful it may be worthwhile to check into this.

The tresaderm is used for bacterial infections, and I am assuming that you took your cat to the vet because of a skin infection, hair loss or you saw the mites. At any rate, I would get a 2nd opinion if you are not happy with your vet, or if your vet refuses to treat the problem to your satisfaction.

I hope this answers your question!

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May 7 2004 at 8:32 AM (19 hours and 22 minutes and 34 seconds later)
         
Rejected erthgoddss's Post. Reason Given: my question is would a ringworm culture show up positive because of hair loss and sores from mites? test shown the cat had mites from a scraping so treated witg ivermectin now did another culture and said ringworm positve also. this cat shows no signs of ringworm. we have several kids as well as adults around this cat constantly and we have no sings of ringworm but culture says positve so should i treat for ringworms or could it be positve from the skin rash from the mites?
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May 7 2004 at 8:36 AM (4 minutes and 7 seconds later)
         
i need to know if a skin reaction to mites would also make a ringworm culture show positive? we treated for mites because they were seen but also now a culture comes back positive for ringworms. we dont see sings of ringworm really and this cat is held by several kids and adults and we have no ringworm so was wondering if anything else could cause a positive culture of ringworms before i treat for it?
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May 7 2004 at 8:50 AM (13 minutes and 32 seconds later)
         
ACCEPTEDCheck Mark

 It is still possible that it is ringworm. (see below). A cat can have more than one skin problem at one time. Perhaps when the mites were under control the bacterial infection began.. it is hard to say. I can tell you that my own cat had several different kinds of mites, lice, ticks and fleas when I got her (she was found by the side of the road) and it wasn't until I got the ringworm from her that I had her back to the vet for a diagnosis. She never showed any symptoms and it did not come up on the first skin scraping done.

http://www.ivis.org/advances/Infect_Dis_Carmichael/cervantes/chapter_frm.asp?LA=1

It is important to note that canine and feline ringworm infections differ clinically. Canine infections generally produce lesions, whereas clinical signs may not be evident in cats. In cats, it is possible to culture dermatophytes from clinically healthy animals that act only as carriers of conidia, without being infected

I hope this helps!

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May 7 2004 at 10:17 AM (1 hour and 27 minutes and 25 seconds later)
         
thank you! i will assume the cat has both even though we dont have any lesions. i just didnt want to treat for both if the mites could be causeing the test for ringworm to be positive. this is what i was wondering most.-Was the two close enough that it could somehow cause the ringworm to show false positive.
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