Hi Sheila, Thanks for your opinion. I'm thinking along the same lines. If it's not too late I am going to start her on the Prednisone tonight and hope for the best.
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:55 AM, Armstrong-Brown, Sheila DDS Timonium < [email protected]> wrote: > I am sure the Elisa test was wrong. You can have Curly retested in 3 > months to be sure. The IFA is very accurate. If the cat is indoor, no way > to get infected. > > > > *From:* Felvtalk [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf > Of *Randy Henke > *Sent:* Wednesday, December 14, 2016 8:41 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis > > > > Our cat, Curly, is ten years old. We found her outside as a kitten and had > her tested for FELV at that time. She was negative. She's been strictly an > indoor cat since then and had no contact with any potentially infected cats. > > Three months ago, she wasn't acting like herself. Very lethargic and > moderately dehydrated. We took her to the vet. She was running a low fever > and her blood test showed severe anemia and low white cell count. The vet > suspected immune mediated hemolytic anemia. He gave her some fluids, > started her on an antibiotic for any potential infections and prednisone. > Three days later she was about the same so we took her back to the vet. > This time they ran an ELISA test to rule out FELV even though it was > incredibly unlikely given her history. It came back positive. They drew > blood at that time for an IFA test to confirm it and told us to discontinue > the prednisone immediately. > > By the next day, Curly was feeling better and she quickly bounced back to > her old self which I suspect was due to the three days of prednisone > treatment. The IFA test came back negative. > > We were content to think the ELISA was a false positive because Curly > seemed fine until a couple of weeks ago when she became listless and > anti-social again. Another blood test showed her to again be very anemic. > > We are very confused about what to do. The negative IFA really has me > wondering. From my understanding, that test is 99.9% accurate in detecting > the second stage of leukemia. > > A negative IFA should mean only one of two things: > > 1. The cat is not infected with FELV. > > 2. The cat is in the early stages and has not progressed to the second > stage of the disease where the virus infects the bone marrow. > > That would mean that, in order for the anemia to have been caused by > leukemia, the IFA should have definitely been positive at that point > because it would need to be actively compromising the bone marrow's > functioning. > > I am leaning toward trying prednisone again, especially since she is > hardly eating or moving around at this point. If anyone can point out if my > logic is flawed, please do so. Any suggestions would be very much > appreciated. > > Thank you, > > Randy > > _______________________________________________ > Felvtalk mailing list > [email protected] > http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org > >
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