To Elizabeth Paz: re: Prednisone and doing great......
Hi Elizabeth, I am catching up on my posts so forgive me for the late reply. I am really curious about your furbaby. You said that he was a kitten when he was diagnosed with FeLV. Some kittens throw off the virus and live healthy lives as a negative afterwards. When was the last time you had him tested? Are you sure he's still FeLV? If he is, it's wonderful that he's 7+ and still going strong!!! :) Wendy Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever has! ~~~ Margaret Meade ~~~ Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. http://sims.yahoo.com/
re: Prednisone and doing great......
Hi C J, One morning I noticed his eyes were cloudy so we immediately rush to the vet. He said it was Uveitis and it could be caused by a underlying problem. He took a full blood panel and of course we got the sad results that he had Felv. As I said before I had never heard about this disease, I know when he was a kitten he had his needles for it but the disease itself I knew nothing about. I never understood where it came from as all my cats have always been indoor cats. But there it was. He then started us on the prednisone, all I can say is that it has been a life saver for him. At one point they had asked us to put him down but we desided this was not an option, and with lots of love and caring and of course lots of prayers he is so happy and healthy so far. I felt the same as you are feeling about his immune system but I knew there was really not too much of a choice. I contacted a wonderful vet in the States (we are in Canada) Dr. Jean Hofve and had a phone consultation with her and followed her advice more so than my own vet as he had little to say on felv, but she was fantastic and took away my fears regarding prednisone and his immune system. I know it's a worry but I guess you have to see what is best for your kitty. Read and go into all the Anemia sites and talk to the forum members I'm sure many are going through the same dilemma. The way we all share this wonderful felv site and all the info. Good Luck . m: C J [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: Re: Prednisone and doing great.. Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 19:24:41 -0500 I'm just curious. What condition was your vet treating with Prednisone? Was it just due to being FeLV+, or were there symptoms the vet was treating? I've been giving prednisone for anemia, but I am trying to wean my kitty off of it. I've been suppressing his immune system for 2 months now, and I don't think that is the best thing for him. Cassandra - Original Message - From: Elizabeth Paz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 6:41 PM Subject: Prednisone and doing great.. Hi Teresa, My cat was diagnosed with felv when he was 2 yrs old, he is now 7 1/2. It was such a shock at the time as I have had so many cats and this was the first time I had ever heard of felv. He was put on 5 mg of Prednisone a day and is still going strong and I do mean strong. The vet began lowering the dose after the first year and slowly continued. We now give him 2.5 every other day and have been doing so for about 2 yrs now. We did try to take him off of it completely, but after about 3 months we noticed he was a bit hangy so we started it back up again and if you could see him he is a chunk and so healthy. It's so hard to know we share this world with people that dump or throw little beating hearts away like garbage. God Bless people like you Teresa. From: Teresa [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: Prednisone? Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:35:48 -0500 I recently have acquired several felv+ cats, the one who is sick at the moment is a pathetic case who was dropped off on the highway near a farm, a very popular dumping spot I've been monitoring for the past few years. Many or most of them end up at home with me if they seem not to be faring well at the farm. Anyway, turns out this poor thing is totally blind as well as felv+. I mean he sees NOTHING. I've had many cats who were legally blind but this one doesn't even react to bright light. He was dumped, in winter no less, along a highway roaring with 18 wheelers night and day. How this critter ever lived this long, he's probably 4-5 years old, is totally beyond me. Well I did not mean to get harping that, I'll never get off it. It just makes me sick to my stomach. Timmy is the most loving, slobbering, kissable, hugable, sweet thing to come along for a long time. But I have to guide him to his food dish and this is inside his cage. I mean, how has he LIVED? I suspect whoever dropped him didn't realize he was blind. Cats can sure fool you. But then again, seems it would be hard for him to fool anyone when he has to be shown his food dish. My understanding is that this farm only feeds cats that are dumped off dog food and cow milk, so the daughter told me a couple years ago. And the night I picked him up, Timmy's stomach was making very loud growling noises for several hours, and seemed distended. That all went away in a day or so and I attributed it to drinking milk Ok, what I was checking the list for was, some time ago I thought I saw some info on prednisone use in felv+ cats but I don't find it now. (Also several of the links from the felv site do not work at the moment, including the Cornell info one.) I haven't been giving Timmy pred, or anything solely for his felv, but he's
Re: Prednisone and doing great......
I'm just curious. What condition was your vet treating with Prednisone? Was it just due to being FeLV+, or were there symptoms the vet was treating? I've been giving prednisone for anemia, but I am trying to wean my kitty off of it. I've been suppressing his immune system for 2 months now, and I don't think that is the best thing for him. Cassandra - Original Message - From: Elizabeth Paz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 6:41 PM Subject: Prednisone and doing great.. Hi Teresa, My cat was diagnosed with felv when he was 2 yrs old, he is now 7 1/2. It was such a shock at the time as I have had so many cats and this was the first time I had ever heard of felv. He was put on 5 mg of Prednisone a day and is still going strong and I do mean strong. The vet began lowering the dose after the first year and slowly continued. We now give him 2.5 every other day and have been doing so for about 2 yrs now. We did try to take him off of it completely, but after about 3 months we noticed he was a bit hangy so we started it back up again and if you could see him he is a chunk and so healthy. It's so hard to know we share this world with people that dump or throw little beating hearts away like garbage. God Bless people like you Teresa. From: Teresa [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: Prednisone? Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 10:35:48 -0500 I recently have acquired several felv+ cats, the one who is sick at the moment is a pathetic case who was dropped off on the highway near a farm, a very popular dumping spot I've been monitoring for the past few years. Many or most of them end up at home with me if they seem not to be faring well at the farm. Anyway, turns out this poor thing is totally blind as well as felv+. I mean he sees NOTHING. I've had many cats who were legally blind but this one doesn't even react to bright light. He was dumped, in winter no less, along a highway roaring with 18 wheelers night and day. How this critter ever lived this long, he's probably 4-5 years old, is totally beyond me. Well I did not mean to get harping that, I'll never get off it. It just makes me sick to my stomach. Timmy is the most loving, slobbering, kissable, hugable, sweet thing to come along for a long time. But I have to guide him to his food dish and this is inside his cage. I mean, how has he LIVED? I suspect whoever dropped him didn't realize he was blind. Cats can sure fool you. But then again, seems it would be hard for him to fool anyone when he has to be shown his food dish. My understanding is that this farm only feeds cats that are dumped off dog food and cow milk, so the daughter told me a couple years ago. And the night I picked him up, Timmy's stomach was making very loud growling noises for several hours, and seemed distended. That all went away in a day or so and I attributed it to drinking milk Ok, what I was checking the list for was, some time ago I thought I saw some info on prednisone use in felv+ cats but I don't find it now. (Also several of the links from the felv site do not work at the moment, including the Cornell info one.) I haven't been giving Timmy pred, or anything solely for his felv, but he's gotten this upper respiratory that is going through my flock and got real sick with it and is now improving with baytril spiked with some dexamethasone just to allow him to breathe better etc. But I understood that pred can be beneficial in felv. Actually I think I snatched him from the jaws of death this time, my fingers are still crossed. Another felv+, Inky, that I picked up at the same time, just died last night from this virus, in spite of the most intensive treatments we could give him. I do have a wonderful vet. But of course I still like to double check up to put into context, what he might be saying about this subject or others. But he has won my confidence over the past 5 years but again, YOU GUYS are the real experts. So can anyone tell me where the pred info is or any thoughts on building Timmy up for future battles? I've been sort of subconsciously switching him over to people food, first as a means of enticing him to eat but the more I've been thinking about this pet food adulteration situation, the more it seems to answer my questions for such a long time now, about why kidney failure seems to be such a big issue with cats these days. What have we been feeding our cats lately? I guess we have no way of really knowing. At least people food is usually more recognizable, you can SEE a piece of meat or a carrot. With cat food, who knows? And now they say even fish meal is contaminated, and that seems to be used in almost all cat foods. He loved chicken noodle soup (low salt kind) and went nuts for some chicken ala king awhile ago, also a little tuna. Oh yes, he is very very hard to pill! He
