General Discussion

Only one of my cats can eat dairy now he’s also my longhair. He likes yogurt. So some cats don’t seem to be affected, but you’re right most of them are. But he doesnt eat it often and i would never give them any raw milk etc.

Yes, and raw meat also can carry viruses, bacteria and parasites. They can get toxoplasmosis from that and so can people… the raw diet is a big thing now with cats especially, and dogs however, although I have tried that in the past, I have not done it at all recently. One of my cats tragically died from toxoplasmosis pneumonia last year very suddenly, and there was a lot of negligence involved, partly because they didn’t give him the right medication or diagnose it.

Toxoplasmosis is a lot more complicated than people realize. Once a cat is infected, if their immune system is compromised or they are stressed out in any way even though they may have overcome an initial infection it can come out again, and it’s rare, but it can kill them.

I know that it was nothing I fed him that caused this, he was an outdoor cat who I took in and he was exposed outside before . I still feel awful about a lot of things to do with that and blame myself and I will never feed any of my cats any type of raw food again. The problem is that they catch mice even in the house. I’m trying to figure out what to do about that.

All of my cats are indoor now, but for a long time, my other cats were indoor and outdoor, they hunted, and none of them ever had any type of toxoplasmosis infection with any symptoms.

So it’s pretty rare, however after my beloved ginger passed from this, my three other cats were also diagnosed with it and one at least also had toxo pneumonia so I had to put them on medication for 2 to 3 months and now my floofy guy is on an inhaler for the rest of his life from the pneumonia. It’s very stressful because now I have to worry all the time that it’s going to come out again and they could die from it. Thank goodness they survived it or I would have gone mad to lose them all. Losing my ginger nearly killed me.

T gondii is a protozoan parasite, which once it gets to a certain phase, and it’s reduced either naturally by the cat or by treatment with a drug then goes into the muscle and nerve tissue, and then it could come out again, even though it has been dormant for a long time. Plus, there are different types of strains of T Gondii, and even though they’re only supposed to be able to shed it in their feces once in a lifetime if they keep getting re-infected with different strains, they could start shedding it again eventually.

Even though I was caring for him, when he could have been shedding more, I was not infected. I have never been infected by anything from my cats over the years so that is also rare.

Lots of other parasites, viruses, and bacteria can be in raw meat and vegetables and unpasteurized milk too. So it obviously is not worth the risk.