I would suggest 1 mg 2x a day then, Sherri. I had Zander on 2 mg 2x a day but only right at the start for a month or so to “kickstart” the process because his haematocrit was soooo low. I think the usually recommended dose for Winstrol for cats is 1 mg twice a day. I gave Zander his pills all at once – prednisone, Winstrol and Doxycycline. I suspect that the problems you encountered are far more likely to be related to the higher Winstrol dose than the staggering of the medication.
Now that you have clarified the dosing for Bogey, I think that the problem was the high dosing of the Stanazolol. I think if you drop it by half, and keep everything else the same, you might get a better response. Frankly, though, it is the very fact that the numbers tumble every time the meds are pulled, that convinces me that it is definitely the meds that are making such a significant difference in the levels. I really found, with Zander, that it took more than 10 months before the numbers would “stick” – ie – when I discontinued the meds, that the numbers wouldn’t start to immediately decline, and I was testing him weekly. I could always see an immediate reaction in the blood work, if I pulled him off the Winstrol. With Zander, after the 10 month period, I was able to wean him down, but that probably took another 6 months or more. Thereafter, I watched him like a hawk, and any time I saw his gums or ears fading in colour (and I got pretty good at seeing it, as you might imagine) I would put him back on the meds for a 6-8 week course, and that tended to straighten him back up again. I don’t know what to make of the description of icteric, because, like I said, the only way serum would become icteric is from an elevated bilirubin count, and the bilirubin was completely normal. However, even if the tech mixed up the description, that doesn’t mean the lab results are mixed up. The latest results are awfully close to the results from before December, so I wouldn’t assume they belong to another cat. Determining if a sample is icteric simply requires the tech to hold up the tube and look at the colour of the serum. It is possible she wrote down icteric on this sample, but it was another sample which was icteric. I am fairly confident that the serum was not icteric, though. Amani From: Felvtalk [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sherri Godschalk Sent: January-05-17 8:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] FW: Greetings & Bogey's Doc Visit Hi Amani. Thanks for writing. Bogey actually was taking 2mg of the Stanazolol once a day. (one capsule) Is that what your Zander was taking? Doc said I could try every other day, or try 1mg twice a day if she starts to become ill again. I think it is going to be a real balancing act here. In that 22 days since she was hospitalized, she only had 7 dozes of Stanazolol and 8 of Doxy. I am going to try to space them out some on a daily basis. Not give her any medication within 3 hours of taking another. Did you give your baby meds all in one sitting (both the steroids)? She is to be on the Doxy for 10 days and recheck around that time. I am watching her food intake more carefully. If she starts to slow down eating like she did when her liver problems started last month, maybe I can catch it before it is a crisis and give her a break from them briefly. I wouldn’t have guessed that her numbers were so bad. I was actually taken aback when he showed them to me. She is eating so well. Has gained almost a pound in the last month. Active. I thought she was doing a lot better than she was as far as test results go. I was glad to see her platelets were not bottomed out like they were in the past. Amani, did you ever get to the point with Zander that he wasn’t on constant medicine? Was he able to sustain pretty good numbers for any period of time without the medication? I had to look up the word “icteric” that she had written on the results. Bogey’s stool and urine have no issues at this moment as far as color. Nor does her skin. That surprised me too. In all honesty, after I left there I thought “did they get my results mixed up with someone else's?” Thanks, Sherri From: Felvtalk <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Amani Oakley <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 7:27 PM To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [Felvtalk] FW: Greetings & Bogey's Doc Visit Hi Sherri As you’ve said, the good news is that the liver enzymes are dropping down. The bad news is the anemia is back. I think if it were me, I would probably go back to the 1mg a day dose of Stanazolol, along with the ¼ tablet of doxy twice a day and the 5 mg of Prednisolone. I agree you could try halving the prednisolone and giving ½ tablet, twice a day, but I am not sure that is very significant. My other concern is that the lymphocytes have jumped up quite a bit as well, which is not a good thing since that is usually the result of the FeLV virus load. I also see a significant drop in the platelets. With my cat, I found that each time I took him off the Stanazolol, I would get a nose-dive of the red cells/haematocrit/hemoglobin as is apparent in Bogey’s most recent blood results. That is why I ended up deciding to ignore the high liver enzymes. However, I did not have a situation as you described, with Bogey feeling very unwell with the high liver enzymes. Zander really didn’t exhibit much in the way of changes when his liver enzymes increased, but I sure saw a difference when he wasn’t on the Winstrol, so I opted to keep him on the Winstrol and ignore the liver enzymes. Obviously for you, you will have to see how Bogey does both on and off the medication and play it by ear. (By the way, I don’t think the tech was right about the icteric blood. The total bilirubin was only 1.4 so I don’t see how it is possible for the serum to be icteric.) Amani (Sorry – I ONCE AGAIN had to delete the rest of the message, since ONCE AGAIN, the message bounced.) _______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
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