What a gratifying thing to get such caring and educational replies from
you folks about my Timmy. I guess we get so used to bearing the burden
on our own shoulders that we forget there are kindred souls out there
doing the same thing.
Well I am familiar with pred and its evils, I am unfortunately on it
because of rheumatoid arthritis for which I refuse to take the going
drugs, which are linked to lymphoma and blindness, both of which my
father had, so my risk is increased right there. But I sure need
SOMETHING. Plus, I have osteoporosis so I definitely should not take
pred. So I take Miacalcin for that. The options are not very attractive
in this business of getting old and sick!
As for my vet, he did say something to the effect that pred can be and
is used in felv cats to suppress some of the symptoms and assist in
managing it, not that it impacts the disease and of course with the
understanding of its undermining the immune system. My previous vets
before I moved also used pred for various things and actually, I do,
too, with my large population of all sorts of not only conditions but
personalities. I will use it briefly for a cat who is so miserable it
won't eat, can't smell food, can't breathe because of nasal discharge,
etc. Usually it will get them eating pronto and get them over that hump
without force feeding. I started this with the previous vets who would
spike their initial shot of antibiotics in the office, for such things
as severe URI's and urinary problems. It can get them peeing without
being catheterized quite frequently. So this is the type of usage I use
it for. I also have a cat who is pretty blind, who has seizures and I
give it to him during spells when he's having more seizures. I have a
couple cats who have severe stomatitis that nothing has worked for, so I
use steroids for them to try to manage it. I know it sounds like I use
it a lot but it's really not that much per cat and it's only after I and
the vet have tried other things first. I try to keep it to "surge" type
treatments and wean them off it asap. But I find it very valuable for
sick cats. We have also used it for various cancers we have dealt with.
Right now I have one who has a very ugly, nasty, runny tumor in his ear
that has been removed once but came right back, and I don't think he
could survive without his steroids, that thing gets out of control
without them. We are looking for a specialist to operate again. The
tumor is benign.
In Timmy's current situation, he just got the upper respiratory that is
still going around my brood but actually, he's been snotty in the nose
since I got him some months ago, but it wasn't severe. I treated with
clavamox at first and that was good except for the couple deep bites and
all the scratches I got giving it to him, but it came right back and
since it didn't seem to be bothering him and he wasn't sneezing it
around, he was eating and acting very well, I figured I'd save the
antibiotics for down the road when I figured we'd need them more.
Actually I treated a couple times, once with baytril., but no steroids
till this time. This time he got real sick with it as did my negatives
who got it, some did die very quickly from it. We don't know what it is
except it's viral. I've had a horrible winter with it, the worst of my
life as far as sick cats. It's been a nightmare. But Timmy stopped
eating suddenly and nothing tempted him, I tried all my tricks, salmon,
etc etc, I have a cupboardfull. I got him on baytril immediately and
then some dex and did get an immediate response from that in the eating
department and he's been eating well ever since. He's been on it several
days and today I am going to look very closely at starting the tapering
process.
No, I'm sure Timmy wasn't at this place more than a day or 2 at most
because believe me, I monitor the whole area thoroughly on a daily
basis. I do a roundup a little ways away from the actual farm buildings
and provide food every day. Actually the dumping has gone way down the
last year+. Before that, it was SEVERAL new ones per week. Now there has
only been a few the whole winter and spring so far. All the locals know
what I am doing etc. I even had the game commission people checking on
me because someone called them saying I was acting suspiciously...Word
gets around. This is a very small-town, rural area. Anyhow, I know who
is there and who is new today. I have even, let's say, gone places
perhaps I should not have gone, in order to rescue some, knowing they
needed rescued! There is no way he was there surviving and going blind
from the taurine thing.
Believe me, I would dearly love to step in and not only feed the
farmer's cats, but try and doctor them to a certain extent too, and
especially spay and neuter. There are no subsidized programs around
here. But there is just no way I could ever broach the subject with this
farmer. Besides, I am managing all this on disability! I am poor! What I
am already doing comes at a very big sacrifice, there is just no more to
give. Before I moved, there was a same situation with a farm, and cats,
and I did broach the subject offering to supply food, and not only did
the farmer get very very angry, but next time I went back (by dark of
night, to check up and feed on the sly), all the cats were GONE! They
were just gone! I went back again another time and they were still gone.
I had thoughts that he had to have shot or poisoned them, to get rid of
so many all at once like that. That was hard to deal with, that I caused it.
Sorry to be so long winded, just responding to some questions I got...
Anyway that's the basic story with Timmy, I firmly believe he's been
blind awhile, it actually took me a couple days to figure it out and I
was studying him closely. I think if he had any kind of stable home
previously, people being what they are, they might have missed the fact
that he was blind. In fact I've had several, quite a few, who I found to
be either very nearly totally blind, or totally deaf, that the previous
people had no idea at all! And even the vets that these cats passed
through had no clue. I used to volunteer big time at a shelter until I
moved here so I'd see people bring these cats in. But cats are
incredible hiders of their problems like this. They fool you well and
learned to do it to keep predators from getting suspicious that one
might be easy prey.
Anyhow, I sure don't know what I was thinking or where I saw the
references to prednisone use in felv. Lately I've gotten serious short
term memory loss with my RA, or at times I just think I'm losing my mind.
By the way as for other treatments described on this site, I've talked
to my current vet about these and their effectiveness and his feeling
seems to be you can try them and they might well help but they might
well not help, too. That there is nothing you can count on to improve
the felv status, it's hit or miss. /I briefly went to another vet here
who claims to specialize in felv cats (I accidentally turned on italics
and can't turn it offl!!), and he said basically the same thing, most
cats will do pretty well for around 4 years, in a decent home etc., but
then the felv will rear its ugly head and there's not much you can do
about it. I have used immunoregulin and inteferon for FIV cats in the
past and I honestly couldn't see any improvement. But I am not saying,
definitely not saying, these treatments don't work. Actually this past
couple years is my first experiences with felv, I got one then I got
another and those first 2 did well for a long time with nothing. So I am
basically ignorant on this subject and wish I could remain so, without a
need for dealing with it. I'm overloaded as you can probably see. But my
vet is totally open to whatever I want to try as long as it's
reasonable. He's a younger guy and the most by-the book vet I've run
into yet (that takes in an awful lot of territory). Not far out of vet
school. Doesn't try to make things up. Pretty meticulous overall. Does
NOT try to sell me stuff just for the sake of making a sale! /
Whatever else anyone wants to say or advice to give would be most
welcomed. I do think (hope) Timmy is at least coming out of the woods
for this episode. It's worrisome, though, that this rotten virus,
whatever it is, has been just coming back and coming back, in the other
cats. It seems I cannot get rid of it! I've been treating some cats all
winter long and it just comes back. It is basically a nasal thing with
the biggest discharges I have ever seen in cats. Actually I have also
been fighting a big situation with ear infections this whole time as
well, runny ears. Vet says this ear thing is bacterial so I don't really
know if it is part of the nose thing. Actually there were a couple cats
who died very quickly who did not appear to have ear infections, and
whose noses were so slightly runny that I didn't even notice it. I think
the virus just hit them and that was it, they did not even have time to
develop the mucous and etc. It's been horrible. There are 2 at the
moment who just seem to have mainly inflamed eyes and somewhat of a
nasal discharge, not huge like most of them. Most who have the huge
discharge do not have enflamed eyes. All are tested as soon as I get
them so I don't have felv+'s walking around sharing everything with the
negatives. This thing just LOOKS like a regular upper respiratory except
for the sheer AMOUNT coming out the noses) but it has been so deadly.
Never seen anything like it in my lifetime career as a crazy old cat
woman. (Even as a young woman, I was a crazy old cat woman.)
Again, thanks so much for the interest and caring and for being there.
