[Felvtalk] Curly's gradual improvement

Amani Oakley aoakley at oakleylegal.com
Thu Jan 26 13:59:21 CST 2017


Randy

I am so happy for you and for Curly, and thrilled that your vet has recognized the usefulness of “Zander’s Protocol” in treating FeLV cats. Though I lost my precious little boy just a little over two years ago, his stoic tolerance of me monitoring him so closely and studying his blood work results, allowed me to figure out some of this stuff. I want to recognize his bravery and refusal to give up, when really, things were very grim. When his haematocrit dropped to FIVE, after the FeLV crash, he was lying motionless under the oxygen tent and everyone was telling me it was time to let him go. It was only because, when I called his name that he emphatically wagged his tail, and kept doing it every time I said his name, that reinforced for me that he was in there and listening, and I wasn’t about to give up on him.

In looking at Curly’s very rapid heamatocrit recovery, versus the much more prolonged one with Zander and others who have shared their experiences in this forum, I am going to hypothesize again that perhaps the sooner that an FeLV cat gets on Zander’s Protocol, the faster the reversal happens, if it is going to happen. With Zander, it was at least three months before I put him on the Winstrol – he was already on the Doxy and Prednisone from before. In the three months (or more) between his FeLV crash and when I decided to try the Winstrol, I had tried other things like interferon and the LTCI injections, and nothing had worked at all. Perhaps the longer the virus has to attack the bone marrow, the more depleted the bone marrow gets and the harder it is for the Winstrol to have a positive effect on the it.

With respect to taking Curley off the meds in a month, again, I did this very much by trial and error with Zander. I would try to wean him off, and would check his blood work with every attempt to reduce the medication. Any worsened lab results (red cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets, reticulocytes, haematocrit) and I would up the medication again. I found that there was an immediate slippage of his results, every time I tried to wean him off (which again, supported the belief that the improved results were related to the medication given, since attempts to reduce the medication had an immediate negative impact on the results – part of the scientific principle). This lasted 10 months or so. I suggest the same “play it by ear” approach for Curly. Try weaning Curly off, with close bloodwork monitoring. If her results hold, you’re good to go. Otherwise, resume the protocol.

Zander had much worse liver enzyme results than you’re reporting. I don’t have the results off-hand, but my recollection is that the results for all the liver enzymes (AST, ALT, LD, TBili, DBili) were all significantly increased. I am guessing but I seem to recall that ALT would have been in the 500-800 range. It all disappeared when the Winstrol was discontinued after 10 months, and I never had problems with his liver in all the times I tested him after his recovery. Your vet is correct to just leave things well enough alone for now.

I am delighted at your vet’s response. This is what I would hope and expect from all vets. Try out the protocol, run before and after blood work, and then decide if it works or not. Simple. Keep politics and taboos out of it. Ignore the red herring of the liver enzymes because what’s the point in safe-guarding the liver if the cat isn’t going to survive the viral attack? If the protocol doesn’t work, then stop. Ideally, there should be no delay in getting started with Zander’s protocol, because (a) why let the cat get more and more debilitated before you start the treatment – the treatment may not be sufficient to pull the cat back out of the abyss if you wait too long and (b) if it isn’t going to work, you have to move on to other options, again, as quickly as possible. Others have not had success with Zander’s protocol, and so it may be that different strains of the virus are responsible for the fact that the protocol works very effectively, in a relatively short period of time, with some cats, but not others.

Amani

From: Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org] On Behalf Of Randy Henke
Sent: January-26-17 9:52 AM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Curly's gradual improvement

Curly's latest labs from yesterday show another hematocrit leap from 15% to 23% in 2 1/2 weeks. She has also gained 6/10 of a pound! (7.1 up from 6.5). Behaviorally she is almost back to her old self. She is no longer hiding, seeks out attention and is eating well. Our vet told us he is astounded. But more importantly, he said that he is changing his treatment for FELV cats based on Curly's remarkable improvement and will be using Prednisone, Winstrol and Doxycyline in the future. A small win for our side against this disease.

Her blood chemistry test did show that her ALT levels have risen to 174 which is an indicator that liver cells are being destroyed. Our vet said it is definitely a result of the anabolic steroid but he isn't overly concerned yet. H wants us to continue treatment for another month. Once Curly's hematocrit is up to around 30 he wants to start cycling the Winstrol, one week on and one week off, to give her liver a chance to regenerate.

Without this forum and the advice I received here along with a very understanding and open-minded vet, I'm quite sure Curly wouldn't be around anymore. I have my fingers crossed that we can keep things balanced and headed in the right direction but so far, so good!

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 12:23 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com<mailto:aoakley at oakleylegal.com>> wrote:
Hopefully, we start winning the vets over when they see the results, and they start to tell each other about some success for FeLV cats with this combination. By the way, I have also effectively used this combination for a cat who, I believe had FIV, and I currently am using just the Doxy/Winstrol combination on 2 of 3 kittens we picked up from the side of the road in August and they displayed the symptoms of Lyme Disease (alternating lameness and other signs). In the last case, I am pretty sure that the majority of the effect on the Lyme organism (Borrelia bergdorferi) is from the Doxycycline, but the good effect on the lameness (which had been in place for several months before I thought to try the medications) is I believe as a result of the use of the Winstrol.

When the vets tell me that (a) they don’t know what the diagnosis is and other options seem ineffective or (b) they tell me there is no hope, I will usually try the Winstrol and almost always get a decent result.

Amani

From: Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>] On Behalf Of Randy Henke
Sent: January-22-17 11:54 AM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Curly's gradual improvement

Amani, you asked what our vet thought about Curly's improvement. He was very pleased but I think he was also a little surprised. He is an incredible vet and always goes the extra mile to listen and explain things. He was also very open to letting us try the Prednisolone, Doxy and Winstrol, even though he'd never treated a FELV cat in that way. I think he thought it would help put my mind at ease that we'd tried everything we could and he's right. It would have done that even if the treatment hadn't worked. He was very concerned about the Prednisolone opening her up to secondary infections but once he saw the numbers start to improve he was convinced we were doing the right thing and told us to keep it up. I am going to talk to him about continuing the Doxy.
Robert, that's a great idea about crushing the Doxy, mixing it in broth and administering with a syringe. We'd tried mixing it in her food once and that did not go well. Obviously it's a very nasty tasting medicine.
Ardy and Katherine, thanks for your support. I really wish that more vets were open to trying novel treatments that hold so much potential instead of assuming that they know everything.
Randy



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