it's not a hard-and-dried thing, as you said--i know of positives who seemed
in perfectly great health not make it through spaying/neutering, too; at the
sanctuary, we'd neuter the little boys as soon as possible to solve any
breaking-out-into-kittens problems, but some of the girls were NEVER spayed,
based on their health. but just as with vaccinations, perfectly healthy cats
can die from routine spays and neuters, and you have to weigh the
alternatives. i just don't think that we can blame everything that happens
to an FIV, or an FeLV, on their having the virus wandering around their
systems. Until they come to us with the genetic profiles and complete vet
records, it's all a gamble
personally, i vaccinate my FeLVs as babies, then again if they make it to
three years, just as the recommendations are for other healthy cats. i
spay/neuter them when they seem strong enough; and i keep my paws crossed
and love them every single day, knowing that there are no guarantees that
there will be tomorrow--for them, or even for me.
MC
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Lorrie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Mary Christine, I had two FelV kittens. One was vaccinated by the vet
after having testing positive with the Elisa test. He had one day of
feeling bad, like all kittens do, but has been fine ever since. The
other kitten, also positive, got extremely sick, couldn't even hold
his head up, and soon died. I'm assuming his immune system was gone,
whereas the other kitten had an immune system that was still pretty
much alright.
Re: your other e-mail.. I agree, vets want to give kittens way,
way too many vaccinations. They also get the same amount of vaccine
a full grown cat gets, which doesn't seem right to me.
Lorrie
On 10-29, MaryChristine wrote:
i respectfully disagree.
asymptomatic FeLVs are not sick cats. every sanctuary or multi-cat
household will tell you that until the virus is activated, FeLVs
are just normal cats--they get sick, they get treated, they get
well. in sanctuary settings, FeLVs are kept with other FeLVs, in
all stages of sickness and health. since FeLV kills through
opporunistic infections as well as lymphomas and other
manifestations, if the healthy FeLVs in the populations were
seriously immune-compromised, each time one of them went into their
final battle, all the others would get sick as well and be unable
to fight off the onslaughts of new infections.
this does not happen. if you have two FeLVs in the house and one
becomes ill, why doesn't the other, sick cat, immediately
succumb? this is another misunderstanding, i truly believe, from
vets who haven't bothered to keep up on the research, and/or to
adequately educate their patients.
let me tell you, however, if you've ever seen a cat die of
panleukopenia, you won't ever want it to happen again.
there are ALWAYS risks in using ANY drug, and while there have
certainly been reactions to vaccines throughout time, the way to
counter our over-vaccinated society isn't necessarily to stop doing
them at all.
a symptomatic cat is sick; it may not have a thing to do with the
FeLV, but an asymptomatic cat being sick because it may have FeLV,
is like saying that all of us who had chicken pox are sick, because
we've got that herpes virus just waiting to break out into herpes.
MC
(haven't you missed me?)
On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 5:29 PM, MacKenzie, Kerry N.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Sally, I personally would not vaccinate a positive cat. See Jean Dodds'
and Charles Loop's (both vets) views here. (The paragraph below is
taken
from the website.) Kerry M.
http://www.newsagepress.com/protectyourpet.html
All packages of vaccinations carry warnings that they should be
injected only in healthy animals. In the case of cats, vaccine
manufacturers advise against vaccinating pregnant or nursing cats.
However, many pets are not healthy when vaccinated although they might
not have outward signs of health problems. Charles Loops, DVM, a
holistic veterinarian from Pittsboro, North Carolina, notes that
chemically killed viruses or bacteria are injected directly into the
blood stream, which is an unnatural route of infection. (7) This
causes
the animal's antibodies to attempt to fight off the offending virus
molecules and render them harmless. If the animal's immune system is
too
weakened, he or she cannot fight off these viruses and can develop a
reaction to the vaccine. Even small amounts of a virus that is
introduced through a vaccination may be too much for sick animals to
fight off. They then may fall ill from the very disease to which they
have been vaccinated.
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