Re: [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

[Ardy Robertson]

Our Tigger was found as a tiny kitten (the vet thought 4 months in age but 
small due to dehydration and near-starvation). We had him tested for FeLV and 
he was negative. Five years later when he became sick after the stress of us 
bringing in another cat that bit him a lot, they tested him again and he was 
positive. Tigger had been strictly an indoor cat. (The cat that bit him was 
negative.) They told me his original test must have been taken at a time when 
he was “shedding” the virus so it caused a false negative.

 

Ardy

 

 

From: Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-boun...@felineleukemia.org] On Behalf Of Randy 
Henke
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 12:48 PM
To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

 

I will keep everyone posted, Katherine. I'm hoping my hunch is correct that she 
doesn't have FELV but she's still very sick right now.

 

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:56 AM, Katherine K.  > wrote:

Randy,

 

I'm sorry your baby isn't feeling well. What an unusual story you shared. Did 
your vet say anything about hemobartonella? That can cause anemia, but I'm not 
very familiar with it so I can't offer much more information or advice there. 
There is a Yahoo! group called Feline_Anemia. It was pretty active a couple 
years ago, not sure about now, but at least you could search the archives. I 
had an 8 month old kitten die from anemia, but he was definitely FeLV positive. 

 

Talk to your vet about prednisolone, instead of prednisone. My 14 yo FeLV cat 
has been on it for a long time now. He also gets mirtazapine every few days, 
which stimulates his appetite. 

 

Keep us posted on Curly!

 

Katherine

 

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Randy Henke  > wrote:

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

 

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Re: [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

[Randy Henke]

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 <
sheila.armstrong-br...@ssa.gov> 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:felvtalk-boun...@felineleukemia.org] *On Behalf
> Of *Randy Henke
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 14, 2016 8:41 AM
> *To:* felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
> *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
>
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>
>
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Re: [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

[Randy Henke]

I will keep everyone posted, Katherine. I'm hoping my hunch is correct that
she doesn't have FELV but she's still very sick right now.

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:56 AM, Katherine K.  wrote:

> Randy,
>
> I'm sorry your baby isn't feeling well. What an unusual story you shared.
> Did your vet say anything about hemobartonella? That can cause anemia, but
> I'm not very familiar with it so I can't offer much more information or
> advice there. There is a Yahoo! group called Feline_Anemia. It was pretty
> active a couple years ago, not sure about now, but at least you could
> search the archives. I had an 8 month old kitten die from anemia, but he
> was definitely FeLV positive.
>
> Talk to your vet about prednisolone, instead of prednisone. My 14 yo FeLV
> cat has been on it for a long time now. He also gets mirtazapine every few
> days, which stimulates his appetite.
>
> Keep us posted on Curly!
>
> Katherine
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Randy Henke  wrote:
>
>> 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
>> Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
>> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
>>
>>
>
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>
>
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Re: [Felvtalk] Update on Bogey My FELV + Cat

[Sherri Godschalk]

Well they released her today. Not much drop on the TBIL. She is less yellow.
She is still very wobbly but not as bad as when I took her in. Is
disoriented. Her BUN today was below normal at 14. Her ALT had dropped from
237 to 194 with the normal range shown below. She ate pretty good when I got
her home. Not drinking anything so I am just giving her an eyedropper of
water every half hour or so.

I know she needs to eat to keep this elimination thing going. Should I be
giving her food every hour? At least a couple of bites in a syringe? Is
there anything else I need to do for her. I have her safely away in a small
bathroom to protect her.

The doctor told me to get her back on the Winstrol but I am going to wait a
day or so. He gave her a shot of pred before I got there so told me not to
give her that pill.

Wish us luck!

From:  Felvtalk  on behalf of Amani
Oakley 
Reply-To:  
Date:  Tuesday, December 13, 2016 at 7:47 PM
To:  "felvtalk@felineleukemia.org" 
Subject:  Re: [Felvtalk] Update on Bogey My FELV + Cat

Sherri
 
The results aren’t that bad at all. I have seen Total Billirubins (TBili) in
the thousands and the babies/humans and animals survived. The liver enzymes
are barely budged. They are  wee bit up but again, I have seen them in the
thousands with no effect on the cats. There may have been a gallbladder
blockage or something like that, (though I don’t know if cats get these).
This may have been washed out by the fluids she is getting.
 
Your explanation regarding adding the Doxycycline explains everything. What
I have repeatedly said in this forum is that you need the combination of
Winstrol to up the cell production and Doxycycline to retard the
reproduction of the viruses. You can see the difference in the results once
the Doxycycline was added at the end of October.
 
I am hoping that Bogey is out of the woods now. I don’t think that either
the Doxy or the Winstrol are the culprit here. The Winstrol is likely
getting the liver enzymes to increase a bit but only a very small bit. The
ALT and GGT are the only ones a bit elevated, but again, I have seen these
in the thousands – especially the ALT.
 
I do notice however that her potassium is a bit low (I hope they were giving
her some potassium in the fluids) and her glucose is a bit high. Did they
give her dextrose?
 
Amani
 

From: Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-boun...@felineleukemia.org] On Behalf Of
Sherri Godschalk
Sent: December-13-16 7:49 PM
To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Update on Bogey My FELV + Cat
 

She was really out of it earlier today. Couldn’t stand on her own. Very
confused. Dr told me once a cat goes yellow like that they don’t normally
survive. The tech that was in there with me today said she couldn’t believe
the test results weren’t worse than the were. Said the TBIL was the bad
thing. I haven’t looked it up yet.

 

We added Doxy on 10/24. Two weeks on and then a month off. So she was in to
her second round of it. No other changes. Feeding her anything and
everything she would eat. The doc didn’t want to see her again until after
the second round of Doxy. We were just about done with it.

 

I have bounced a lot of email here too. Might be copying and pasting from
Excel that is making the emails run big.

 

Anyway…here ya go.

 
Scale12-Dec
GLU74-159178
BUN16-3623
CREA08-2.41.3
BUN/CREA18
PHOS3.1-7.54.5
CA7.8-11.39.8
TP5.7-8.98.7
ALB2.2-4.03.1
GLOB2.8-5.15.6
ALB/GLB0.6
ALT12-130237
ALKP14-11139
GGT0-48
TBIL.0-.927.9
CHOL65-225170
AMYL500-1500842
LIPA100-1400255
NA150-165158
K3.5-5.83.4
NA/K46
CL112-129114
OSM CALC318
 
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Re: [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

[Armstrong-Brown, Sheila DDS Timonium]

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:felvtalk-boun...@felineleukemia.org] On Behalf Of Randy 
Henke
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 8:41 AM
To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org
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
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Re: [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

[Katherine K.]

Randy,

I'm sorry your baby isn't feeling well. What an unusual story you shared.
Did your vet say anything about hemobartonella? That can cause anemia, but
I'm not very familiar with it so I can't offer much more information or
advice there. There is a Yahoo! group called Feline_Anemia. It was pretty
active a couple years ago, not sure about now, but at least you could
search the archives. I had an 8 month old kitten die from anemia, but he
was definitely FeLV positive.

Talk to your vet about prednisolone, instead of prednisone. My 14 yo FeLV
cat has been on it for a long time now. He also gets mirtazapine every few
days, which stimulates his appetite.

Keep us posted on Curly!

Katherine

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Randy Henke  wrote:

> 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
>
> ___
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>
>
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[Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

[Randy Henke]

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
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