No, ringworm is not actually a worm. This fungal infection of the skin is most commonly seen in young kittens and puppies. Certain breeds, such as Yorkshire Terriers and Persian cats, and older animals whose immune systems are compromised can be at risk for ringworm. This infection can be spread to people who come in contact with these animals. Join Dr. Nellie Choi, veterinary dermatologist, to find out more about this skin infections, including what to watch for, how your veterinarian might test for it, and what they can do to treat it.
Welcome Dr. Nellie Choi, Veterinary Dermatologist
[00:01:07] Dr. Lancellotti: Welcome, everyone, to today’s episode of Your Vet Wants You To Know. I am joined again by Dr. Nellie Choi. Dr. Choi was with us for the episode on Allergy MythBusters. She is a veterinary dermatologist practicing in Hong Kong and one of my favorite people in the whole world. She and I were resident mates at the Animal Dermatology Clinic in Pasadena, when we were studying veterinary dermatology as residents, and I am so thankful that she is here again to join me today, to talk about ringworm. Welcome back, Dr. Choi.
[00:01:36] Dr. Choi: Hi, Dr. Lancellotti. Thanks for having me again. I’m so excited. I know it’s been so long since we did that last episode. A lot has happened since, but I can’t believe I’ve been in Hong Kong for a year and a half now. I think that when we last did the episode, I was just settling in and in quarantine.
[00:01:55] Dr. Lancellotti: Yes! You had all that extra time on your hands and you were like, “Sure! Let’s go ahead and record an episode. I’m stuck in a hotel room.”
[00:02:03] Dr. Choi: It’s crazy- a year and a half. A lot has happened, but then at the same time, I’ve just been stuck here because traveling is quite tricky at the moment. So I’m just kind of chugging along.
Ringworm can affect pets and people!
[00:02:15] Dr. Lancellotti: And you are quite possibly one of the best people to come on and talk about ringworm because it is really prevalent in Hong Kong.
[00:02:23] Dr. Choi: Yes. It’s definitely not something I expected when I moved here. We were always taught that ringworm is a very common disease seen in general practice. That was kind of how I felt working in LA, and also in Perth (Australia), as well. I did not see many ringworm cases come through referral. But in Hong Kong (I don’t know if it’s the weather or just that the severity of ringworm cases we have is so profound), I would see these at least once a week, if not, twice. So, in my entire year and a half that I’ve worked in Hong Kong now, I’ve probably seen more ringworm (quite possibly) than my entire 12-year veterinary career.
[00:03:10] Dr. Lancellotti: Do you have any particular pets that you remember or something that kind of sticks with you when you think about treating ringworm?
[00:03:18] Dr. Choi: I do. I think it’s more of the zoonotic side of things that usually really stands out. I always get very surprised, though, that there aren’t more owners living with ringworm pets that have ringworm, themselves. We always ask this question, especially with new consults. “Does anybody, at home or in contact with the pet, have any skin issues or lesions?” And usually, with the ringworm cases, I would ask every recheck, as well. “Is everyone at home still okay and free of lesions? 99 percent, I reckon, would say, “Oh yeah. Everyone’s fine.” And I’m like, “Are you guys wearing gloves for the topicals and the bathing and all that?” And they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But it just always shocks me that they’re living in a small apartment with their ringworm pets and everyone manages to stay clear. But the one case that I do remember very strongly, who I still see for rechecks now, is one that I remember asking the question, “Does anyone at home have any skin problems?” At first, they said, “No.” But then, they’d go, “Oh actually, our dad has a fungal skin disease on his feet.” The first thing I thought was, “Oh. Athlete’s foot.” We know that there are papers written about pet owners with fungal diseases on their skin and rubbing their cats with their feet on the floor. Immediately, I go, “Oh, my goodness. This could be a little bit more gross than the normal ringworm. But when I fungal checked the cat, it was Woods lamp positive and it came back M. canis on the fungal culture. I was so sure this was going to be a Trichophyton case from the athlete’s foot. But I was proven wrong. Every time it comes in for recheck, I cannot think of anything else besides the first time that they told me that their dad had a fungal foot disease and potentially has contact with the cat.
What is Ringworm?
[00:05:18] Dr. Lancellotti: So you talked about a couple things there that I think our listeners may be a little bit confused about. We’re going to get into a little bit about what ringworm is. We’re going to get into why we have to be careful when we’re around these pets that have ringworm and we’ll get into what a Woods lamp is, and how we use that in the diagnosis and figuring out what’s going on with the animal. So let’s talk about this name. Why do we call it ringworm? What are we actually describing?
[00:05:49] Dr. Choi: That’s such a good question. Because there is often this misconception of the word “worm” and thinking it’s a parasite (heart worm or intestinal worm). But, as we know, ringworm is just a terrible name. It’s not a worm, but a fungal infection. In people, it can create this red circular ring lesion on their skin when they’re infected, and we don’t actually see this, very classically, in pets. When people look at their pet’s skin and they have ringworm, they don’t see that circle. If anything, most people think they see ringworm on the pets, but it’s actually an epidermal collarette- which is (more often than not) a bacterial skin infection (Pyoderma). But the red ring lesion is only really seen in people.
[00:06:44] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah. I think that’s where people get hung up. This common name, ringworm, sounds completely wrong from what is actually causing the skin problem. So it’s really important to be able to figure out what is actually going on with the animal’s skin, because sometimes bacteria can look like ringworm, which is a fungal infection.
Which pets are at higher risk for ringworm?
Dr. Lancellotti: There are certain types of animals that are going to be more at risk for developing ringworm. What type of animals do you mostly see develop this disease?
[00:07:17] Dr. Choi: Most of the cases that I see through clinics now are dogs and cats in Hong Kong. So within the population of animals that I see, I definitely see a lot more cats infected with ringworm, compared to dogs. And we know that with Persian cats, they’re often known to be quite predisposed to this disease. And in dogs, Yorkshire Terriers is the dog breed that seems to get ringworm or refractory ringworm more commonly. But to be honest, at the moment, I don’t think I see a tendency to have more Yorkshire Terrier ringworm-positive dogs, or even Persian ringworm-positive cats. I seem to see a broad number of breeds (Domestic Shorthairs, Exotics, and even Sphinx (hairless-looking cats, popular in Australia). So I’ve seen ringworm on those cases, as well, even though there’s not much hair on those little kitties. But I tend to see not only the textbook Yorkshire Terriers and Persian cats, but a large number of other different breeds. And I have a feeling that a lot of the cats I see now with ringworm could be due to the poor breeding within Hong Kong pet stores. Unfortunately, a lot of local pet stores here have a questionable source of puppies and kittens- smuggle puppies/kittens potentially from mainland China. Also, there aren’t any registered breeders that would have papers with pets. These pets are usually still sold at a premium price. They’re not cheap, even though they don’t come with legitimate breeder papers and things, but I guess it’s a supply and demand issue, like with anything. People might not be very educated about the scary dark side of breeding in an unsanitary environment or a poor breeding facility. They just see this cute little kitten or puppy at the window shop. Unfortunately, it does create that demand. Hashtag ‘adopt don’t shop,’ for sure. But I really suspect that the high number of cases of these ringworm patients that come through is due to irresponsible breeding.
[00:09:48] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of data to show that animals coming from catteries (where there are a large number of cats living in a small area, and they’re all kind of on top of each other, sharing the same germs and the environment) are more likely to develop ringworm. And they’re also going to be a lot more stressed. If you have a lot of animals living in a small area, if the animal becomes stressed, that lowers their immune system’s ability to clear these infections. So if they come in contact with ringworm, from another cat, they’re going to be too stressed to be able to fight off that infection. That’s when we see a lot more of those infections. I see a lot more Yorkshire Terriers and Persian cats here, in Los Angeles, than other breeds with ringworm, but any breed can potentially develop this disease. I recently had a pit bull that developed ringworm because he was chasing squirrels, so there’s a specific type of ringworm that squirrels and rodents will carry. And that dog, not only caught the squirrel, but caught the ringworm that was on the squirrel (and had it all over his face, as a result). But certainly animals that have a compromised immune system (young puppies/kittens, older animals that may be on some type of medication to suppress their immune system for certain diseases, or animals that are in high-stress situations like shelters or catteries) are the ones that we want to watch out for, because they could potentially be at a higher risk than normal pet animals.
How can a veterinarian tell if a pet has ringworm?
Dr. Lancellotti: If we are suspicious that an animal has ringworm, there are a lot of different things that we can do to search for clues, to figure out if that truly is the disease that they have. I want to talk about the different types of tests that we can do. And what is the most fun diagnostic test for you to do, as a dermatologist, when you’re trying to identify ringworm?
[00:11:52] Dr. Choi: I think the most fun are the ones when I get an answer immediately because it’s so gratifying to know an answer within minutes. I’m old school. I love doing skin cytology on my suspected ringworm cases, Woods lamp, and usually, I do a fungal culture as well, but that typically does take about 3 to 4 weeks for me to get the results back. For skin cytology and Woods lamp, those were probably my favorite in-consult diagnostic test for ringworm. Unfortunately, there’s no one gold-standard ringworm test. These are all what we call point-of-care testing. And for fungal cultures, one of the other really fun things I like doing is using a toothbrush technique to collect the dander, scales, and the hair from my patients and submit that for fungal culture at the lab. I find cats tolerate this a lot better than plucking the hairs from the areas, and also, I get to sample the entire cat from head to tail, quite easily, without them getting grumpy at me. So that’s definitely one of my favorite techniques- submitting the whole toothbrush to the lab after I’ve brushed the cat all over to collect my sample.
[00:13:12] Dr. Lancellotti: You’ve gone through a couple different tests there. Skin cytology, woods lamp, and fungal culture- all really helpful for us. The skin cytology just means that the veterinarian’s going to take a slide and kind of lift up some of the crust that is on an area where the skin is affected and just press that slide to the underlying skin, so that we can see what’s happening under the microscope. And we’re looking for things like white blood cells (which are an indication that there is some inflammation going on), the body may be trying to fight infection, etc. But for ringworm, we are looking for fungal spores, under the microscope, so that we can see if this infection is actually there. Woods lamp, I would have to say is probably my favorite test to do. The Woods lamp is this really fun, special lamp that kind of looks like a black light. It’s a little bit different. But when you turn the Woods lamp on and you turn the lights in the room off, if the animal has ringworm, the hairs that are infected with that fungus will start to glow a bright green color. The area where the animal’s infected will just light up bright green, so it’s a great way for us to see, pretty immediately, that this is very likely ringworm and we need to get the animal treated. As Dr. Choi mentioned, the fungal culture takes a few weeks to get back, but that’s going to be a definitive test for us. The culture grows the fungus and tells us exactly what species it is. That helps us to figure out what treatments we want to use, and it helps us to monitor the response to treatment, making sure that the animal is improving.
Can you use a blacklight for a Woods lamp?
Dr. Lancellotti: Are there any issues, as far as using the Woods lamp, that people should be careful of?
[00:15:11] Dr. Choi: Yeah, definitely. I’ve noticed it is different from a black light. I have also had clients that would want to continually monitor their pets at home, and they would buy (what I presume to be) a black light off the internet and kind of shine it over their pet regularly. And they’d tell me that it’s getting better or getting worse. But quite often, the wavelength of the light that’s being emitted out of the black light is quite different from a Woods lamp, so it’s not going to show that ringworm “apple green glow” that we see on a black light, as compared to a clinical Woods lamp. The cost of them is actually quite different, as well. You can get a pretty cheap black light on the internet for probably like 10 bucks, but for really good Woods lamps that we use in clinics (preferably the plug-ins with magnifying glasses attached), those usually cost a little bit more money. The other thing is learning how to use a Woods lamp appropriately. Quite often, people may mistake a positive fluorescence, but not the actual green color fluorescence as a positive ringworm indication. Lotions, creams, or even lint can glow under the Woods lamp, but they won’t have that apple green color, so we need to identify the apple green color, which is the characteristic ringworm glow.
[00:16:52] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah. And I’ll have a picture of that magnifying woods lamp that you described on the website. If people want to see exactly what type of tool we’re talking about, there’ll be lots of pictures of the hairs glowing that apple green color, on the website, as well. It is pretty striking when you see it, but a lot of false positives can be mistaken for ringworm, if it’s being done by someone that doesn’t quite understand exactly what it is that we’re looking for with this tool. So it’s helpful to have a specialist involved, if you’re still worried that your pet’s skin isn’t quite getting better.
How is ringworm treated?
Dr. Lancellotti: How about treatment? Once we know that an animal does have ringworm, how do we get control of this infection and stop it from spreading? I always talk to my clients about the three aspects of clearing the disease. Do you do kind of the same thing?
[00:17:43] Dr. Choi: I do. I always tell owners about those three pillars of treatment that we need to get on top of ringworm. Unfortunately, it can still take a couple of months to have complete resolution, but at least we’d be on the right path to kind of speed things up. All three things are usually recommended to be done at the same time- oral antifungal (by mouth), topical antifungal (bathing or full body rinses), and environmental decontamination (cleaning at home the right way). So, I usually give clients a handout of the household chores that they need to be doing for the next couple of weeks or months, to minimize the reinfection of potentially contaminated hairs or dead skin that could reinfect their pet during the process.
[00:18:40] Dr. Lancellotti: We want people to go through and do the environmental decontamination, to really clean their home and get all of those extra fungal spores out of the environment, so that the animal is no longer coming in contact with them. This way, when we’re testing to monitor response to treatment, you’re not seeing just random fungal spores from the environment being carried on the animal’s hair (leading to false positives when we’re trying to see if the animal’s getting better), so that other people/animals in the environment are not coming in contact with those spores and leading to infection within the family as well.
What are the risks of treatment of ringworm?
Dr. Lancellotti: Can we talk just briefly about the medications that we might use when we’re treating ringworm? Those oral antifungals- typically itraconazole, terbinafine, fluconazole or ketoconazole are primarily the antifungal medications that veterinarians might recommend. What are some things that pet owners should watch out for if they’re using these medications?
[00:19:46] Dr. Choi: One of the most common side effects I would usually warn owners about, while giving the oral antifungals to their pets, is gastrointestinal upset (vomiting, diarrhea, poor appetite). The absorption of most of these antifungals are improved when there is food in the belly, so it helps to feed them a nice full meal and then give the oral antifungals after. Hopefully, that also minimizes the amount of gastrointestinal upset. But it is something I would probably see in 1 out of 30 pets, so it’s not super common, but every time I prescribe it, I would definitely warn owners about the possible side effect of having, vomiting and diarrhea. And if that happens, I always tell ’em to let me know immediately and stop the medication, because we don’t want to have to go through weeks and weeks of the pet having gastrointestinal upset.
[00:20:43] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah. I also warn owners that, in addition to worrying about tummy upset, I also worry about the potential for the animal’s liver being affected. Most of the time, when I’m using these medications, we’ll do some blood work before we start to make sure that there’s nothing wrong with the liver ahead of time. Then, if they’re on these medications for more than a month (they usually are), we’ll check that blood work while they’re taking the medication to make sure that the liver is tolerating it. Something that your veterinarian may recommend is some blood work before and during treatment of ringworm.
What topical treatments are used for ringworm?
Dr. Lancellotti: How about the different topicals? I know there are a couple products that I will commonly reach for when I’m treating ringworm. Can you talk a little bit about the topical treatments that you would recommend and what you warn owners about when they’re using those?
[00:21:33] Dr. Choi: Absolutely. One of the two topical antifungals that I use the most in Hong Kong is a topical enilconazole concentrate. Usually, I require owners to dilute it 1 to 50 with water and soak the patients with it. It doesn’t have too much of a smelly odor, so I do like that, but it also doesn’t require a rinse like you would with a shampoo. Most pet owners seem to find this doable and not too stressful. The other option is a miconazole chlorhexidine shampoo. That’s quite commonly prescribed by general practitioners, as well. It also has an antifungal property, but the downside is it does require a 10 minute soak. For some cats that find it quite stressful to be bathed, the prolonged time they need to be in the bathroom sink to be lathered, washed, and rinsed, can be a little bit too much. A lot of pet owners prefer the shorter duration of the soaking, so they usually may choose the concentrate instead of the shampoo. Also, I do require clients to do it twice weekly, so it’s pretty frequent and quite labor intensive for some. But unfortunately, that’s just what’s required to really get on top of the ringworm.
[00:22:58] Dr. Lancellotti: I will commonly use the miconazole chlorhexidine shampoo, as well. Sometimes, for cats, I’ll also reach for a miconazole chlorhexidine mousse because that is a little bit less stressful than the shampoo. And it does put that active ingredient directly on the hair, and that can be helpful in areas that maybe aren’t as big. So, if it’s not the entire animal that’s affected (maybe they’ve just got one little patch on the side of their neck), that might be a little bit easier for them. Some veterinarians will use a lime sulfur rinse as well. The lime sulfur does tend to be very stinky, so I try and use the miconazole chlorhexidine shampoo instead. It’s a lot kinder to my pet owners than the stinky lime sulfur dip.
Be careful when treating pets for ringworm
Dr. Lancellotti: What sort of precautions should pet owners take when they’re caring for cats or dogs that have ringworm?
[00:24:02] Dr. Choi: Definitely look out for lesions. If they suddenly develop a rash or that kind of classic ring on their skin, I would tell them to go see their human GP, have them get it checked out, and maybe mention to the doctor that there is a ringworm-positive pet at home. Hopefully, they can prescribe the right medication. But other than that, it’s a lot of cleaning. I know it’s quite stressful for a lot of owners. And I always say, “Look. If you see any of your pet’s hair floating around, just assume that it’s ringworm on there and make sure it’s cleaned out as quickly and as frequently as you can.”
[00:24:42] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah. Wear gloves. Make sure you’re washing things like crazy. And talk to your family doctor if there is something that pops up on your skin while you’ve got a cat or dog at home with ringworm. It can be something that humans catch, particularly if there’s anybody in the home that is on any type of chemotherapy or medications to suppress their immune system, so we want to try and keep the animal isolated from that person so that they don’t develop infection. Overall, ringworm is this fungal infection that’s very common in young kittens and puppies and older animals whose immune systems may be compromised- certain breeds, like Yorkies or Persians. As far as treating these animals, what do you think overall is the best approach to them?
[00:25:31] Dr. Choi: Usually, I would base it on the patient because even though we talked about the three pillars of treatment (environment, oral, and topical), I don’t always have the opportunity to use all three on each patient. For example, if there’s a patient that’s really immunocompromised and on chemotherapy, I don’t find that I would be able to use oral antifungals for those patients, in case it does push them into a more unwell state. If they have a liver tumor, for example, and already have elevated liver enzymes, or even patients that have diabetes and Cushing’s Disease that could also already have other systemic issues, then I find that oral antifungals can be a bit risky for those patients. Potentially, we have to just rely on topical treatment and environmental cleaning to really get on top of the ringworm. Sometimes, I warn owners that we may not be able to completely get full resolution of the ringworm, or stop treatment at any point in time. That can be a bit daunting for some owners, but it’s better than risking having their pet become more sick with an oral antifungal, just for the sake of making sure the ringworm clears out faster.
How can we tell if the ringworm is gone?
[00:26:55] Dr. Lancellotti: When would you say that an animal’s ringworm infection is resolved?
[00:27:00] Dr. Choi: That’s a really great question. I find that owners usually want to define it with the number of weeks of treatment, which in ringworm cases, it’s very difficult to predict. So I never tell them an exact amount of time. It’s very different from taking a course of antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, for example. For ringworm, I always tell owners we need to have two negative fungal cultures in a row to be able to say, “Okay, we’re finally cured.” And that’s when we can consider stopping treatment. But otherwise, if it’s just, “One month of treatment and we’re done,” that’s definitely not how ringworm works.
[00:27:45] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah. I use that same kind of marker, as far as being able to tell if an animal’s infection is gone. I tell owners, “We’re going to continue our treatment with our oral antifungal, our topical antifungal and our aggressive environmental cleaning and decontamination until we have two negative fungal cultures, at least 2 weeks apart- more like 3 or 4 in some cases- and we have complete resolution of the animal’s skin disease.” I want that hair to be completely grown back. I want all the scabs to go away. I want it to look like a normal animal and I want to have two negative fungal cultures that were taken at least 2 to 4 weeks apart. Once I have that, then we can stop everything and the animal’s back to normal. But not every animal responds as quickly as others, especially if there’s lots of other animals in the household or if they have a compromised immune system. So it’s really important to just continue those recheck exams and keep up with the veterinarians recommendations until they say, “All right, the infection’s completely cleared.”
[00:28:53] Dr. Choi: Oh. Ringworm is like a bane of my existence.
[00:29:00] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah. I think. Pet owners just need to understand that this can take a while to clear, and as long as you’re following up with those rechecks and your veterinarian’s recommendations, hopefully you just continue to make that steady progress towards resolution of the disease.
Does your pet have ringworm?
I want to make sure everyone’s aware that Dr. Choi is on Instagram @dermvethk and she has been posting some really interesting pictures and posts about some of the dermatology cases that she sees. So, if you guys are on Instagram, go ahead and follow her for some really cool pictures and information there, if you’d like to learn a little bit more about veterinary dermatology. A lot of family veterinarians are very comfortable managing pets with ringworm, but if you would like to find a veterinary dermatologist near you, there is a link under the resources tab, so that you can consult with a specialist. If your pet has had ringworm, and you’ve gone through this process, I would encourage you to join the Facebook group and tell us about your experience. Share your pearls of wisdom with other pet owners out there who may be going through the same thing that you went through and give them some encouragement that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that they can get through this also.
Scratching the Itch
[00:30:48] Dr. Choi, we end each episode of the show with a segment called Scratching The Itch. This is a segment that is designed to highlight something- either a human interest story, a product or website- just something that provides relief or makes you feel good. Hence, scratching the itch. Do you have a ‘scratching the itch’ for our listeners today?
[00:31:10] Dr. Choi: I do. It’s kind of a gross one. It’s probably going to make everyone’s skin crawl, because it certainly did to us. I remember telling you this when it happened, so I know you already know this story. About a month ago, we had a birdmite infestation in our study room. Basically, it took over part of some of our clothes, on our desk, storage boxes, and even my husband. At first, he kept feeling these little crawling sensation things on his neck and on his arms. And I couldn’t really understand why it was just happening to him. I honestly thought he was just maybe going stir crazy from all the COVID lockdown restrictions and that he was just being a hypochondriac. Later on, we actually could visibly see these little things that look like dust. I guess they were tiny, but they were definitely moving and crawling on all these things. Like the true nerd that I am, I use a bit of sticky tape, stuck some on, and then took them to work so I could look at it under the microscope. I identified them as bird mites, which gave me boards flashbacks.
[00:32:30] Dr. Lancellotti: For anyone listening, as veterinary dermatologists, we have to know a countless number of different types of mites when we take our board’s certifying exam. So, there are lots and lots of pictures of disgusting mites underneath the microscope. You were very easily able to identify that this was a bird mite that had infested your home.
[00:32:54] Dr. Choi: Definitely. It was very triggering. And it took us probably about a week to figure out where they were coming from. All that we could see was where they were landing, but we didn’t know where the source was. We thought, “Did we bring it home from work?” We just had no clue. We don’t have any birds at home. Somehow, we looked up and realized they were kind of falling out from our air con unit. We hadn’t turned our air con on for a couple of months, because it’s been quite cool, so we had to call an AC man to come and find out why there were these creepy crawly things. And there were like hundreds of them at some point. It was just kind of traumatic because we had to pack all our clothes away and tie them up in trash bags. Obviously, I couldn’t afford throwing all my clothes out. So, one of the things we did was we went out and bought some kind of flea spray and started spritzing the whole room, thinking that we could get rid of everything. We would find that they would die immediately, but then we’d wipe them off, and then within a couple of hours, the new batch would just crawl over the area where we just sprayed. It was definitely not a long term solution. Thank goodness. We got the AC guy to come in and he took the air con apart and said that there was this, like this giant hole from the outside to the duct. And I was like, “Well, can you seal it up?” So, he just stuffed all these plastic bags through it and then put a sealant on the outside on the rim and said, “Yeah, that should be fine.” Luckily, it probably took about a day after for the rest of the population to die out. But yeah. It’s safe to say that we don’t have any more bird mite problems now. But that was a pretty disgusting period of time for us. And I felt so bad for my husband because he’s the one that usually sits on his study desk, so I think they were just crawling on him more because he was sitting literally under the AC unit. He just kept feeling them and he’s like, “It’s there, it’s there!” And he’d point on his face and then I would see them. Then, we were like chimps. At some point, I was just picking these things off of him and it was just ridiculous. Now, we can laugh about it, but during that time we were pretty traumatized.
[00:35:23] Dr. Lancellotti: Oh yeah! I would be too. And I’m sorry to anyone listening who is now scratching themselves like crazy. Dr. Choi took a very different approach to the Scratching The Itch segment. We love her for it, but next time, we’ll maybe have something that just makes you feel good instead of feeling horribly itchy. Well, Dr. Choi, thank you so much for coming on, today, and talking about ringworm. I hope that some pet owners have gotten some really good information and feel more equipped at being able to deal with this infection now, if their animal has been diagnosed with it. For those out there who have enjoyed the show, please take a moment to go ahead and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Join the group and tell us about your experience, so that other pet owners know they’re not alone as well. Thank you so much, Dr. Choi. I really appreciate it.
[00:36:19] Dr. Choi: Aw, thanks Dr. Lancellotti. I had a lot of fun. Ringworm can be a grim diagnosis at first, but there’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel, like you said.
[00:36:27] Dr. Lancellotti: Yeah, absolutely. And for all of you out there listening, I look forward to your next visit with Your Vet Wants You To Know.
References:
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- Miller W, Griffin CE, Campbell, KL. Muller & Kirk’s Small Animal Dermatology. 7th ed. St. Louis: Elsevier, 2013.
- Moriello, Karen A., et al. “Diagnosis and Treatment of Dermatophytosis in Dogs and Cats. Clinical Consensus Guidelines of the World Association for Veterinary Dermatology.” VETERINARY DERMATOLOGY, vol. 28, no. 3, June 2017, p. 266–+
- Moriello, Karen A., and Christian M. Leutenegger. “Use of a Commercial QPCR Assay in 52 High Risk Shelter Cats for Disease Identification of Dermatophytosis and Mycological Cure.” Veterinary Dermatology, vol. 29, no. 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 66-e26.
- Newbury, Sandra, and Karen A. Moriello. “Feline Dermatophytosis: Steps for Investigation of a Suspected Shelter Outbreak.” Journal of Feline Medicine & Surgery, vol. 16, no. 5, May 2014, pp. 407–18.
- Sykes, J. E. Canine and Feline Infectious Disease. 2013. St. Louis. Elsevier
