Hi Anna! Glad to have you aboard. I would make sure your older cat is vaccinated against FeLV before having them together. Even though the vaccine is 80% effective, it's better than no protection at all. The vaccine has to be given in two doses, 3 weeks apart (so don't expose your older cat to the kitten until after the 2nd shot). I know FeLV mostly effects kittens and senior cats. With that said, there is still a chance the kitten can fight off the virus. I would wait till he's at least 3 mos old and test him again. If he's positive on the ELISA test, then do an IFA as well. The IFA will indicate whether it is in the bone marrow. The IFA test has to be sent out to a lab. Once the IFA is positive, then generally the cat is positive for life. Please keep in mind that the ELISA test can have false positives so you still have hope. Either way though, please get your older kitty the vaccination.
I hope this helps. I hate this disease and all the if's and but's that go with it! Lynda **NOTE** Never get a cat/kitten vaccinated against FIP, or it will be positive for FIP for life whether it has it or not! ----- Original Message ----- From: Anna Yeutter To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1:26 AM Subject: [Felvtalk] 10 week old baby with slight positive My previous foster baby (and now adopted baby, after a couple weeks absence) who was found when he was two weeks old in a Costco parking lot and who I bottle fed and fostered from when he was three weeks old, went in for his first vet visit today. The first thing the vet did was do the FeLV/FIV snap combo test after drawing some blood (oh boy Jean-Luc screamed and even growled). He walked back in later and showed me the kit with the blue dot at the top and the slight positive result for FeLV. I made another appointment to bring him in in three weeks to check again, but walked away feeling very negative (the vet made me feel like he was doomed). As of this moment, Jean-Luc has been doing well, gaining weight, playing actively and eating normally. I was going to have my parents bring my 11 year old cat up to live with me as well on Saturday (I'm a college student and just recently moved off campus into a pet-friendly apartment), but of course that has been put on hold. This means Jean-Luc is a very spoiled only-kitten, getting lots of love. I've tried to do some reading but it is so overwhelming and I'm exhausted from reading all the conflicting opinions. I would love to hear from some other people. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
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