What I would do is get the transfusion and start him on epogen, do
they know what is causing the anemia. Bailey my positive was anemic and
it was due to the virus surpressing his immune system, my vet started
him on epogen and a fairly high dose of prenisolone (20mgs) before he
got horribly bad and it brought his HCT back up to 40%.
His HCT was 20% when my vet suggested epogen and it got down as low as
15% while we were waiting for the epogen to kick in. When we started
the epogen his HCT was at 18%, it dropped to 15% but went up from
there. It took about 6 weeks from the time we started the epogen for it
to get back up to forty and it went down the first week. Epogen and or
Procrit (they are the same this but Procrit is cheaper by about $25
dollars in my area) can take as long as 3 weeks to kick in and sometimes
even longer so don't wait to much longer if you decide to give it a try.
Vets will scare you by telling you that cats will eventually develope
antibodies to the epogen but that happens in reality about 10% of the
time and usually only after being on it for 3 months or longer. Bailey
was on it 5 months before he passed of undiagnosed cancer. We knew he
had cancer because of his symptoms but we couldn't find it, we did every
test imaginable and could pin point where or what kind. By the time I
consented to exploratory surgery to find it Bailey was too weak to have it.
My vet was treating a cat that was on it a year with no problem. Here
is what I think about, without the epogen or continuous transfusions
Slinky will die ... period.
Just out of curiousity was he tested for hemobartonella and has he been
treated with doxycycline for a minimum of 4 weeks. Hemobartonella is
VERY hard to test for but most vets as a precaution will put anemic cats
on it while trying to figure out what is causing the anemia.
Bailey had a bone marrow aspirate to find out what was causing his
anemia. It did show myloid dysplastic pre-cancerous cells, and when he
still didn't perk up after his HCT was normal again and was having
muscle wasting thats when we knew there was most likely cancer
somewhere. He fisrt got sick with anemia in December of 2005 and
succumbed to pancreatic cancer in May of 2006, he was 11 years old, he
was positive since 5 months of age when he found me and changed my
life. :)
Lots of prayers coming to Slinky, I hope you can reverse his anemia and
pull him through this.
What is his HCT??
--
Belinda
happiness is being owned by cats ...
Be-Mi-Kitties
http://bemikitties.com
Post Adoptable FeLV/FIV/FIP Cats/Kittens
http://adopt.bemikitties.com
FeLV Candlelight Service
http://bemikitties.com/cls
HostDesign4U.com [affordable hosting & web design]
http://HostDesign4U.com
------------
BMK Designs [non-profit animals websites]
http://bmk.bemikitties.com
