How high was Aphrodite's creatinine level? Peaches' WBC had been scary
low 5 days before I took her in for support over the weekend. Tried
clavamox and orbax for preventive reasons to tide her over the low
point, but both made her feel ill. They gave her enrofloxacin at the
university, in case a kidney infection had taken hold, but no way to
know. I considered a necropsy of at least her kidneys, but opted out
for a couple of reasons: 1) they wouldn't sew her back up, and I would
not be allowed to directly pick up her remains, the cremation place
would have to pick them up. I would have no say in asking that they
treat her remains with respect while doing the necropsy.; 2) the
information would be for me only, not put in a database anywhere where
it could help others or expand the body of knowledge of outcomes of her
very rare multiple myeloma. If it's not part of an official study, they
don't care. That really irks me. That should be a given, that they
would want to find out what happened. There is very little literature
on multiple myeloma in cats, and its treatments and outcomes. DUH, I
wonder why. NOT. Here they have this perfect opportunity to gain
valuable knowledge, but there's no money attached, so they are done.
Marsha
On 11/27/2015 8:09 PM, Amani Oakley wrote:
Marsha
At 2 mg a day, a person would need a whole lot of vet pills to use on
themselves. The normal dose for humans is 10 to 12 mg a day, and
athletes use it at way higher levels to enhance performance. In any
event, I would think that a vet could reassure themselves by just
limiting the number of pills given over to a client to 50 or so at a
time unless the vet knows the client very well, as mine do. Winstrol
would hardly be the only vet medication that could be abused or sold
if someone was of a mind to do that.
Zander was the only FeLV cat I have had, that I knew about anyway. I
wouldn’t be so adamant about the Winstrol if it hadn’t been for my
serial blood testing throughout the time I was treating Zander, first
with other treatments and then with Winstrol. The Winstrol was
absolutely tied to his steady rise in red cell, haematocrit,
platelets, and retic count and whenever I stopped for a time, his
results would tumble.
However, I have mentioned on a few occasions that I used the Winstrol
on a cat with nasal sarcoma who was 16. Again, I had tried a number of
other medications and treatments for her to keep her eating and to
keep the mucous being profusely produced by the sarcoma, under
control. She underwent radiation therapy, and the vet who was looking
after her at the time was amazed at how well the Winstrol worked to
keep her eating, and keep the mucous production reduced, and commented
that the cats are often lost because of loss of appetite, both with
this condition and with the radiation therapy. She lived for 3 more
years with the sarcoma.
I used it on a kitten who had come from a feral colony, who was very
very ill – running eyes, nose, incredibly high temperature, not
eating, laboured breathing, swollen belly, with a number of others
from her colony being diagnosed with FIP and dying. I had her on a
number of things for a while, like antibiotics, prednisolone, fluid
therapy, etc. and was not getting any good response until I added the
Winstrol. Within days, she began to eat, play, her nose and eyes
stopped running, her belly deflated and she was left with some
laboured breathing but nothing else.
I used it on a kitten who had been given to me because he was
considered to have a touch of the “wobbles” – thought to maybe be some
cerebellar hypoplasia. Instead of that, I noted that his anal
sphincter didn’t seem to be working properly – it was “relaxed” and
stool not properly formed and “falling out” and problems urinating
(wrong places, but also retention and crying when he went into the
litter box). In humans, these symptoms are consistent with cauda
equina syndrome, which is the result of damage to the nerves in the
lower part of the spine. Then my husband and I noticed that he carried
his tail straight out and didn’t seem to be able to lift it straight
up and there was a large bump at the base of his tail. I took him in
to the vet – surprise – there was nothing they could recommend because
the apparent spinal injury wasn’t significant enough to show on xray.
I put him on Winstrol, and a very short time after that (2-3 weeks)
his anal sphincter tightened up and his urinary control improved. We
thought he was over whatever problem there was but we found that he
would occasionally do something that would seem to reinjure his spine
– eg – trying to jump on the table and missing – and then the symptoms
come back. Another few weeks of Winstrol clears him right up. We took
him in for an MRI and they found a very very small lesion in the
spinal column, exactly where I told them to look. They are unable to
tell right now if the lesion is potentially cancerous or is the
remains of healed injury, and they have asked us to videotape him the
next time he starts having neurological symptoms (which include an
almost drunken walk at his back end) and to NOT put him on the
Winstrol so they can assess the lesion when it is at its worst. In the
meantime, he is doing just fine. I wonder what would have happened to
this kitten had he landed in almost anyone else’s house – he peed on
our bed about 2 weeks after we got him, and just kept peeing on the
bed and on the couch, etc. All the while, I had the distinct feeling
he didn’t WANT to pee there (crazy, right??! Try telling the vet that
you have the FEELING that the cat DOESN’T WANT to pee in the wrong place).
I have used Winstrol in a few other situations where a cat hasn’t been
feeling well or eating well, and I have gotten good responses every time.
I didn’t get any response from the use of Winstrol on one of my cats
who seemed to contract some kind of virus from the vet’s office, and
developed kidney failure. Despite being prepared to dialyse or try
paracentesis, she passed away. Very very recently, I came across an
article that described a newly discovered virus named feline
morbillivirus, which causes tubulointerstitial nephritis in cats,
which results in potentially fatal kidney disease. I think that this
is what happened to my beautiful Aphrodite. She was fine until I took
her to the vet one day for a regular check-up. She and a second cat I
had taken in, both came down with a flu-like condition, and both
seemed to finally recover after a month (but it was a serious
infection, needing fluids, etc.) when Aphrodite relapsed and her
creatinine shot through the roof. WInstrol didn’t have any effect on
her condition, after everything else was tried and found ineffective.
So, this is hardly a great number for a scientific assessment, but by
count, I have found it has helped in 6 cats (4 of whom had no other
options at all for treatment), and didn’t help in 1 cat. Also, because
of the close monitoring of the blood work I did with Zander, there is
absolutely no question in my mind that it boosts red cell, platelet,
and white cell production, in a case of nonregenerative severe anemia
which required blood transfusions to keep him alive.
Amani
*From:*Felvtalk [mailto:[email protected]] *On
Behalf Of *Marsha
*Sent:* November-27-15 7:49 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [Felvtalk] Grieving, and need to understand about felv
Amani, I think you already hit on the reasons for refusal earlier -
the report about potential liver damage, but probably the bigger
reason is that humans try to get hold of it for themselves to use
illicitly.
What percentage of your cats that got Winstrol were FeLV+, and how
many got it for other conditions?
It's too late for Peaches (FeLV negative with multiple myeloma), my
little princess angel that passed on Sunday. I had considered it for
her anemia, but the oncologist suggested waiting until we knew how
much she would recover just from coming off chemo. Otherwise, we
wouldn't know what Winstrol did and what changing her treatment did.
But even though her bone marrow was starting to bounce back a little,
her kidneys went into acute failure, with BUN and creatinine so high
their machine had difficulty giving an accurate reading, and they sent
it to another lab on campus. She was on fluids and a feeding tube
over the weekend, and they were being cautious, but the fluids still
began to put too much strain on her heart so they had to stop the
fluids. She was such a good girl, they didn't even have an e-collar
on her. Unless they took it off for visiting purposes...but I think I
asked someone, and they told me she was doing OK without one.
Marsha
On 11/27/2015 2:14 PM, Amani Oakley wrote:
Perhaps but that wasn’t my experience, and if you go on line, you
find others who find it extremely helpful for chronic kidney
disease cases, just like you mentioned. But Marsha, if the concern
is that the results were “lackluster”, then what could possibly be
the explanation for the pure REFUSAL to prescribe it? Obviously,
it that was all there was to it, the vet could just say, “Well, I
don’t think you’re going to get too far with this stuff, but it’s
up to you if you want to give it a try”. Given that the option
people often get with FeLV cats is zilch, then why not mention
that it is a possibility, though not a great one. When I am
sitting, balling my eyes out and the vet is telling me, “so sorry,
there is nothing at all that can help” and “put him down for his
own sake – you wouldn’t want him to suffer”, then I certainly
expect that I should have been told about Winstrol. It’s not like
we have a lot of options with FeLV. None of the options are
particularly great or can be relied on regularly, and most of the
options are way way more expensive than the Winstrol.
Moreover, I find it hard to believe they got lackluster results. I
have used this stuff now in more hard luck situations than you
would believe, and I would say that in about 80% of the
circumstances, I have had a good to an excellent result.
Sometimes, I get no result.
I find it hard to believe that I just happened to be lucky.
Amani
*From:*Felvtalk [mailto:[email protected]] *On
Behalf Of *Marsha
*Sent:* November-27-15 3:04 PM
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: [Felvtalk] Grieving, and need to understand about felv
Maybe part of it is because of lackluster results for the
conditions they *were* using it for. I found 2 "old school" vets
in my area that had used it a couple of decades ago, then kind of
forgot it existed after it got harder to find. One said she
forgot about it because it didn't make that big of an impression
on her. She had used it for anemia in CKD cats, I think.
Marsha
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