Feline Sneezing

Question
I just brought home a 3 month old kitten who, when I picked him up, smelled of moth balls.  Also, he sneezes a lot!  I cleaned him with cat cleaning cloths, which he didn't mind, but did NO good; tried WetOnes...that did no good.  Since he was such a tropper and didn't mind the cleaning, I tried bathing with a "smell-good" shampoo, which to my surprise he didn't mind much either!  BUT, all the cloths and bath hardly made a difference.  PLUS, his sneezes smell strongly of moth balls.  He also has a big tummy.  I adopted him from an organization whose volunteers foster the kittens until adopted.  The kitten has been sneezing for at least the past two weeks, as I adopted him then, but had to ask the "keeper" to keep him a couple of more weeks while my other two newly adopted kittens got over the upper respiratory infection.  This new little guy just keeps sneezing and sneezing.  He has lots of energy, a very minor bit of discharge from his eyes was noted when I picked him up, but not for several hours thereafter (which is now as I write this email), and he doesn't seem to have any other kinds of upper respiratory.  Is it possible that he might be allergive to moth balls...and, if so, how do I get the moth balls out of his system????  Thanks so much!!!

Answer
Hello!

The smell you have mentioned as moth balls may actually be coming from his stomach, so you are probably feeling it from his breath. The cause of this and his big tummy is probably intestinal worms, but of course I can not say it for sure without an examination. The sneezing may be what is left of a past upper resp. infection, or a viral disease such as feline rhinotracheitis since he is probably not properly vaccinated against this disease yet. I would advise a visit to your veterinarian for deworming and a check-up about the respiratory system.

I hope this has been helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have further questions.

Kind Regards,

Caglar Kondu, DVM