Upper respiratory infection - antibiotics necessary?

by Claire
(Amsterdam,Netherlands)

Hello, and thank you for this wonderful site - it is always so helpful!
I adopted a sweet stray cat (Panda) 6 months ago and she is doing well. However for the past 4 weeks she has been sneezing occasionally, I thought it may be a dust allergy or light cold and she was otherwise fine.

However yesterday the sneezes became more "wet" sneezes, she has a small bit of occasional nose dripping (clear) and she woke herself up with some sudden watery sneezes last night, every few hours. She is a bit lethargic but otherwise in good spirits, eating well etc. Breathing seems fine too, just sniffly.
So I figured she has an upper respiratory infection and took her to the vet today, but her symptoms weren't showing much in the vet office - her temperature was fine, and heart/lungs sounded healthy to the vet.

The vet prescribed Stormorgyl antibotics (a Dutch brand, the ingredients are) spiramycin and metronidazole, for 5 days.
Vet thinks it's likely she has one of the common bacteria infections because she used to be a stray cat, so was quite quick to prescribe the antibiotics on that basis - although Panda hasn't shown any other specific signs of it being bacterial as opposed to a viral illness. Panda had her flu shots etc when I adopted her but of course I don't know her health history prior, she is about 3 years old.

I've given her Day one antibiotic treatment and she seems fine but I'm nervous now because antibiotics can have serious side effects and I wonder if it's better to hold off on them unless I see clearer evidence of a bacterial infection (more lethargy, coloured discharge, or discharge from eyes etc).

Her eyes are clear and there's only a little drop of watery liquid from nose, so I don't want to over-medicate or do any harm when it's still very possible it's just a viral infection.

Thanks in advance!
Claire

RESPONSE:

I don't like to over medicate my animals and usually only do so when needed, but I don't think you have any problem here. It sounds like the vet was erring on the side of caution, trying to cover all the bases As long as your cat isn't one of the few that gets side effects, it should be a benefit.

I have a page called Cat Sneezing, the link will follow:
Cat Sneezing

I hope all is better with Panda is a few days.