Karen, I think you're right about not making Magic's immune system have to do 
anything more at the moment.  Perhaps don't worry about dieting, either, 
until you've seen the vet and have a better idea of his status.  

His condition sounds rather like my Lucy's was (FIV positive).  I had her for 
four years, she was probably 8 or more when I got her, and her only visible 
symptom of FIV during all that time was stomatitis, which Magic obviously 
has.  We have had much discussion of this on the list recently, so you can 
look in archives.

Basically, for Lucy dental prophys worked at first, along with antibiotics 
(antirobe and clavamox, both used for soft tissue infections), CoEQ10, Vit. C 
and interferon.  Ultimately the only thing that helped was full-mouth 
extraction.  It's a difficult choice - in Lucy's case her mouth stank and you 
could smell it from yards away and she couldn't eat (but she was very hefty 
and never wasted away), so we had to do it, but I feel that the stress of 
anesthesia probably is what precipitated her slow downward spiral, starting 
about 3 months after her extractions were done.  For a while, she was able to 
eat very, very well and had no more mouth odor or stomatitis, but a canine 
which we left in broke off, and the jaw-bone became infected.  This may have 
begun to happen even before the extractions were done.  Taking away all the 
teeth minimizes or eliminates the bacterial infection that can cause even 
more serious problems, like osteomyelitis of the jawbone.  

One thing we never did try but that is supposed to help stomatitis of this 
type, in particular, is bovine lactoferrin, so you might try that, although 
it isn't cheap.

I think if it were me, if his bloodwork and checkup show him to otherwise be 
in good health, I'd probably get his teeth extracted, as you will only have 
continual problems otherwise.

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