[Felvtalk] Winstrol....

[dlgegg at windstream.net]

One way to slow down the spread is to spay/neuter all strays, at least there would be less cats to spread the disease.  Of course, all cats in homes would also have to be spayed/neutered.  Once again, it comes down to owners not being responsible and dumping unwanted kittens or giving them away at Walmart to who knows what kind of person.  Around here, many puppies and kittens end up with pitbull breeders who bread for fighting.  This is bad, be cause they die a painful death full of fear and the myth is continued that pitbulls are vicious dogs.  Ever pit I have met is loving and gentle, but then their owners did not have them for fighting.  Should I ever win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes, a lot of it will go to helping abused animals, after abused children and seniors.  Dorlis
---- ROBERT CHAPEL <bchapel at optonline.net> wrote: 
> Hi Ken...
I well know the experience of lying with a cat dying of Felv until they 
passed and these posts are reawakening my own sadnesss and frustration 
at being able to do so little so late with my own two FelV boys.  It is 
SO difficult for me to grasp the level of opposition to Winstrol on the 
part of some vets...  they are surely not worried about law suits and 
they have a dying cat in front of them that they have NO definitive Tx 
for....why NOT try Winstrol...  It is beyond absurd...  Unless there is 
some kind of worry at being fingered for prescibing minute doses of an 
anabolic steroid ( go ahead...take the dose you would give to a cat and 
see the AMAZING effect is has...  You'll feel nothing....  I can't help 
but wonder if a lot of vets think if they wipe out the entire population 
of FeLV cats that they will effectively wipe out the disease( an odd 
consideration given that there will always BE a "patient Zero"...  it 
has to start somewhere and likely would again...   Then again...anemia 
is only one of the complications of this damnable disease ( though 
admittedly the most critical...   They are driving law abiding citizens 
into illegal activity trying to find alternative sources of a hard to 
obtain drug in order to save their cats lives.... it's f-in insane!!!
There is no end to the irrationality one can encounter when people who 
are ' supposed ' to be schooled in scientific thinking decide that , 
that which stands before them....a winstrol treated cat in recovery from 
anemia must not have had FeLV or there must be an alternative 
explanation for the recovery....  Everything BUT trying Winstrol on 
other cats with the disease and SEEING if it works ..run you own N of 5 
or 6 mini experiment and see if you get a a positive result.... It's not 
as though you are using alternative medicine on a cancer patient that 
MIGHT have survived had they had proven Tx...   they have NOTHING to 
offer us that compares with Winstrol in the clutch ( though to date we 
have only a very few cats who have survived as a result of taking 
Winstrol and , to my mind, it has not established itself as the de-facto 
drug for FeLV instigated anemia...but... it is certainly the most 
hopeful in a field of paltry competitors.....   We all want to live with 
hope, and Winstrol gives us this....  So Ken, by all means, spread the 
word, pester,implore,cajole your vet into trying it....but don't be too 
terribly surprised when you have to figure out how to dismantle the 
brick wall you are likely to encounter..


Bob


BTW.... Amani..  are you recommending prednisone or prednisolone with 
the Doxy...   many vets insist that prednisone is not useful for cats..





> I couldn?t agree with you more, but I fear that the scientific/medical 
> evidence is thin because of the really stupid study done a decade ago, 
> which gave three cats massive doses of Winstrol (same levels as given 
> to sled dogs) and reported the resulting elevation of liver enzymes. 
> And then, of course, there is the unhelpful connection to the athletic 
> doping scandals. Studies looking into the effects of Winstrol are 
> therefore few and far between (though I have found a few). Moreover, a 
> physician friend of mine explained to me that once a drug is 
> off-patent (as Winstrol is) then the drug companies can make very 
> little money from it, and so they will not spend money to set up 
> clinical trials, and will instead push other related drugs that are 
> still covered by a patent, so they make more money on the sale of 
> those other drugs.
>
> The problem is that, as far as I can determine to date, though there 
> are lots of anabolic steroids, Winstrol is the only one that seems to 
> have this effect on bone marrow to cause it to grow, create new cells, 
> regenerate, etc, which in turn causes the production of red cells, 
> white cells and platelets from the activated bone marrow. In addition, 
> Winstrol is considered to have very mild side effects in comparison to 
> other anabolic steroids. Winstrol is also found to be very quickly 
> effective. Most of those athletes who will speak about steroid use, 
> confirm that Winstrol is one of the most effective and safest of the 
> drugs (and remember that athletes who are using steroids use them at 
> hundreds if not thousands of times the recommended doses, and they 
> "stack" them will all sorts of other steroids).
>
> I also found, with my own vets, that even with solid proof in front of 
> their own eyes (with cats condemned to death, showing an amazing 
> recovery), they will often look for other explanations other than that 
> it was the Winstrol. As I mentioned with my little Zander, after being 
> told by every vet I spoke with that there was nothing I could do and 
> Zander was going to die (and best to put him down immediately), and 
> being able to show serial blood results weekly which showed a clear 
> improvement from critical haematology values to normal results, at the 
> end of it all, I start hearing things like, "well maybe it was never 
> FeLV in the first place".
>
> I agree that the way to start turning this around, for all of us who 
> have had good results or who may have a cat in the unenviable 
> situation of having little or no other options, is to speak with our 
> vets about Winstrol. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have now 
> used Winstrol, usually in combination with at least the prednisone 
> (with the doxycycline being added on in circumstances involving 
> something likely infectious), for a range of cat problems and have had 
> excellent results every time but once. One case was a 16 year old cat 
> with a nasal sarcoma (kept the sarcoma from causing severe facial 
> swelling, and kept my cat eating for another two years); one case was 
> a cat who came from a feral colony which I later found out had had FIV 
> rampaging through it and killing all the cats (and she came to me 
> EXTREMELY ill with a sky-high fever, tympanic abdomen and fluid around 
> her lungs - she survived when I thought there was no hope at all, and 
> she's still with me now); I have used it  to avoid knee surgery for 
> Zander when he pulled his cruciate ligament; and am I currently using 
> it now to treat a spinal lesion in Pippin - a three-year old who gets 
> flair-ups of neurological problems which I tracked to a spinal lesion, 
> and when the lesion causes swelling, etc., the symptoms reappear. The 
> combination of prednisone and Winstrol appears to be the only thing 
> that reverses the effects of the lesion.
> I think the Winstrol is seriously underutilized and cats respond very 
> well to it, in a number of circumstances. Obviously, it is not a 
> cure-all, and we've heard from other folks who've tried it and gotten 
> no appreciable results, so I am not suggesting it is a panacea by any 
> means. Further, I understand that FeLV is now thought to be caused by 
> at least four or five different types or strains of virus, and I 
> believe that this is the reason that some people get amazing results 
> and some people see nothing.
>
> Hopefully, Marlene will get a good response, and it is very heartening 
> to hear that in Italy, the drug is commonly used to treat FeLV cats. 
> It was commonly used in North America as well, in the '80's and '90's, 
> until the stupid doping scandals (especially Ben Johnson's Olympic 
> gold medal being stripped) shone an ugly spotlight on it.
>
> Amani
>
>

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