It's such a strange an unpredictable disease and it seems like the more vets
and researchers learn the more they realize that they don't know about it.
But, there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel for all cats, even
Fletch.
What have they figured out about Fletch so far? Is his white blood cell count
down or something? What's causing his weight loss? From hearing from others
on the list, even though he has FeLV you would treat him for his symptoms as
though he didn't have FeLV. What I mean by that is don't give up. If a vet
says "oh his white blood cell count is down and there's not much that will help
because he has FeLV" then ask him what he would do if he didn't have FeLV and
to treat him accordingly. Don't let a vet assume he is going to die everytime
he gets sick. You may need to be more aggressive with his treatment or
whatever because of the FeLV but keep fighting. If later on he has a tumor
then treat him for the tumor and don't just say "let him die." The cat may
have a flare up of something or another and then he is fine for the rest of his
life.
Over the years I've been in rescue and in dealing with feral cats I've taken
two or three to the vet that had an injury or something and when the vet tested
them for FIV they were positive. Now that's not quite as bad as FeLV but still
the vets in every case said that the cat probably wouldn't heal from his
injuries because of the FIV and they recommended killing them. But in every
case I said no that I at least wanted to give them an opportunity to heal
before putting them down and in every single case the cat recovered. The FIV
cat that I have that I mentioned was that way. He had a bad URI and the vet
said he probably wouldn't get over it. One round of Clavamox later and he was
fine. Nothing to it. That was about two and a half years ago. He was like 8
years old at the time. I remember two others that I took in that had wounds
and the vets said it was infected and they wouldn't recover because of the FIV.
LIke I said, the vet was wrong in both cases and the cats are now fine.
FeLV is very dangerous and you can't play with it so always keep a watchful eye
over Fletch but it's not an automatic death sentence either. So if funds
permit, find out specifically what's causing Fletch's symptoms and treat it.
And for people that think less of cat lovers - well, I won't tell you what I
normally say to them. Something to the effect of "I'd rather be a crazy cat
(or animal in general) lover than a cold-hearted wretch who didn't appreciate
God's Creations!" Better to love too much than too little so what exactly is
wrong with caring about an animal so much that you want to do whatever you can
to save it's life. If God is Love then love comes from God and to love is to
honor God and the creation that He loves. That's the way I say it nicely ;-)
Usually after that nice speech I tell them to kiss my animal loving butt!
“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are
profitable to the human race or doesn’t….the pain which it inflicts upon
unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me
sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.” – Mark Twain
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 23:36:51 -0500
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] My 1 year old just diagnosed
Maureen
I can't thank you enough for this email. I know i'm not out of the woods yet,
as far as my adults go, but hoping. That seems like a miracle that your fiv cat
didn't contract felv! It seems to me, that after hearing from all of you today
that there can definitely be a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm so grateful
for all of you. And I love being with people who love cats, because sometimes
we are just as misunderstood as our feline buddies are!
Thank you Maureen.
Please take care
Marcia
Sent from my Aug 22, 2011, at 5:25 PM, Maureen Olvey <[email protected]>
wrote:
Not too long ago I posted that I had a FeLV positive cat mixed with an FIV
positive cat. Obviously, I didn't know the FeLV cat was positive since she
tested negative as a kitten. Anyway, the two lived together for two years
until she died and I just tested my old FIV kitty and he's negative. I've got
a houseful of my cats and fosters and I've only tested like 7 of them so far
but they've all been negative. None are vaccinated against FeLV either. It's
weird. I totally expected my FIV kitty to contract it. I'm glad he didn't of
course.
One vet I talked to said that it's possible the FeLV kitty put the virus into
dormancy as a kitten which is why she tested negative and then it reactivated
later as an adult. Maybe that's what happened with Fletch. I wouldn't have
thought a kitten would have a strong enough immune system to put the virus into
dormancy but who knows. But still once it reactivated in my cat I would have
thought she could have spread the virus to my other cats. This vet also said
that most vets now days believe that healthy adult cats are pretty much immune
to the virus. Still best to vaccinate your other cats annually but I'm just
saying it's not surprising your others are negative.
I also have a friend who mixes her negatives and positives together. She just
keeps her negatives vaccinated annually. She even has FIV cats mixed in and
keeps them vaccinated too and they have never caught the FeLV virus.
Definitely get an IFA test to confirm the ELISA test. The ELISA test is wrong
in about 30% of the cases from what someone else told me. It's a very
sensitive test so if it's not done perfectly it can show a false positive.
Course since Fletch is sick it could be correct but you should still confirm
with the IFA test. If the IFA test is negative then it means the virus hasn't
gotten into his white blood cells and t-cell lymphocytes (I have no idea what
that is, I just read it) so he still has a chance of exterminating the virus
completely or putting it into dormancy. So if his IFA test is negative then do
a retest in a couple months to see if it has gotten that far or not. You need
two test with the same results to confirm FeLV status.
If after doing the IFA, Fletch shows positive definitely look into immune
system stimulants like interferon and immunoreglin. I don't know much about
them but others on the list do and your vet should know. Need to keep Fletch
around for a long long time. Since he's sick right now I'd go ahead and get
him going on this kind of stuff.
“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are
profitable to the human race or doesn’t….the pain which it inflicts upon
unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me
sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.” – Mark Twain
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