> > Amy,
You have a cat in the stages that most of us dread. You have a few options available to you. You can follow conventional advice or you can take a chance. From what I've seen conventional medicine does not help in this scenario. My first question is this; Why is he on prednisone? The only possible reason I can see for this is hemobartonella. If that's not present, I fail to see the value. Prednisone seems to be the cure all in veterinary medicine and with few exceptions it simply relieves symptoms while your cat dies. I don't think you have much time to make a choice. Unless there is a valid reason for using the prednisone, I would stop it (taper it) I would be aggressive at this point. I would get acemannan, LTCI and I would probably try the vitamin c drip (I have not used this yet, but Sally would certainly be willing to help you with it). I would do it all together and right now. This is of course dependent on your financial situation - I understand the massive investment this could mean. If, however, you simply treat symptoms and try transfusion, antibiotics, prednisone etc you are simply prolonging the inevitable and only by a small amount - this will also be exceptionally expensive. Here's the thing, you have not done a transfusion yet so you sort of have that as a back door immediate rescue if you need it. The prednisone is not raising the Hct so why do you think it's helping? You have a non regenerative anemia on your hands. Unless you reverse that you're dead in the water - prednisone will not do this. You are facing a tough decision, I know, I understand and I am so sorry for that. If you leave the beaten path of veterinary medicine you have to do the leg work and fight an uphill battle. Medicine is not perfect and neither are people but I can honestly say that from what I have seem, conventional medicine has failed time and again in this situation. Good luck and God bless. Jenny _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list [email protected] http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
