Much of the time kittend arn't tested until they become
sick and normal antibiotics don't work as expected...At this point the
death rate is high...but many cats are positive but becouse they arn't
tested they don't get put into the statistics...Thus keeping an FeLV+
cat really isn't as bad as vets often say...
If a cat is kept healthy and low stress their own imune systems will
keep them out of trouble...This is true for both POS and NEG cats...
My vet explained that ethicaly he is required to tell me that keeping
an FeLV+ is not safe for the rest of my cats...but neather is eating
and breathing....
He told me that he has seen several FeLV+ that have come in sick and
then tested ...They have been living with other cats but he doesn't
recal a case where other cats from the same group got sick...
It seems to be stray cats that live a bad life for a period of time
that are contacting the disease...
>From my own observations..the average age may be 3 years but I think
that if a cat is healthy and made it past 1 year he is in the group
that lives for many more years...Many die between 6 months and 1 year
which brings the average age way down but once he has made it past that
window I think you have to look at a differant set of numbers....
I have now lost 4 under a year and I have one old girl that was in
terable shape (a declawed stray) when I got her but with good food and
fea meds and a couple years time she is doing well..My vet thinks she
is over 12 years old....
Tad
Belinda Sauro wrote:
Barbara,
Did you see my post about my typo, Bailey is 10, not 20. But he has
been positive since atleast 5 months of age when I found him, at the
time I wasin Missouri and took him to three different vet, all 3 said
"You might as well euthanize him, he will be dead in three months. I
had some experience with FeLV and already knew this wasn't true, but
can you imagine how many healthy cats die because people take thier
vets word as absolute and blindly do as they are advised??
Any cat that is positive and asymptomatic for as long as Bailey is
classified as a carrier and the virus is most likely in the bone
marrow. I don't fool myself I know sat anytime he could become
symptomatic and get sick. One of the most important things is keeping
the stress down, stress is a well known trigger of setting the virus
off.
Another thing and I can't speak about your vet, but it ahs been my
experience the vets that have been practicing for a longer time are
less experienced in the virus because they do not go to continuing
education conferences to learn the newest updates about all diseases.
My now vet is very young and has been practicing for only about 6 or 7
years. About 3 times a year she goes for a week or so at a time to
conferences about the newest findings on many different diseases and
she also goes to conferences to learn new treatment options. She is
learning acupunture and holistic medicine as well as traditional
medicine. She will someday be a very well rounded vet, and on top of
all that to help keep my kitties stress down, she comes to the house
for anything that doesn't absolutely need to be done at the office on
her day off!! They get their vaccines at home and blood draws for
blood tests at home. And yes if I find something on the internet I
think has merit I tell her about and she will research it for me. She
allows me to bring them in right before any procedures instead of
dropping them off in the morning and leaving them there all day, this
is very stressful for cats especially. And I wait and take them home
as soon after the procedure as it is safe. She is a gem and if she
ever moves, I'll have to pull up stakes and follow her :))
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