From gcmarg at comcast.net  Wed Oct 17 01:14:54 2018
From: gcmarg at comcast.net (Sandy Millard)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 06:14:54 -0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
Message-ID: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>

I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?

I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food and water.  Is there a product that will boost what i am already using? 
Sandy
gcmarg at comcast.net


Sent from Xfinity Connect Application

From gloriajhook at verizon.net  Wed Oct 17 02:35:47 2018
From: gloriajhook at verizon.net (Gloria)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 00:35:47 -0700
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
In-Reply-To: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>
References: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>
Message-ID: <650B71E7-F77C-4084-97AE-1BC758001FB0@verizon.net>

I would get an antibiotic to help their compromised immune system and suggest a compound pharmacy to provide a liquid form- I?m no vet, and do not have medical training , so, take this as a layman talking-I currently have 15 cats in our home-strictly inside only-so take this as only a layperson sharing?imho- you need a stronger solution as you evaluate the risks.
 So sorry you?re struggling with this, it?s hard, I know!????
Gloria

-g ??
Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 16, 2018, at 11:17 PM, Sandy Millard <gcmarg at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?
> 
> I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food and water.  Is there a product that will boost what i am already using? 
> Sandy
> gcmarg at comcast.net
> 
> 
> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org



From gcmarg at comcast.net  Wed Oct 17 06:05:05 2018
From: gcmarg at comcast.net (Sandy Millard)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:05:05 -0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
Message-ID: <157934234.5.1539774293963@localhost>

Thank you. What do you mean "a compound pharmacy"?
After reading as much as possible, all I can do is keep Sonny comfortable and make sure he eats good food.
I dread what is to come. 


Sent from Xfinity Connect Application

-----Original Message-----

From: gloriajhook at verizon.net
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Cc: gcmarg at comcast.net
Sent: 2018-10-17 3:37:54 AM 
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent

I would get an antibiotic to help their compromised immune system and suggest a compound pharmacy to provide a liquid form- I?m no vet, and do not have medical training , so, take this as a layman talking-I currently have 15 cats in our home-strictly inside only-so take this as only a layperson sharing?imho- you need a stronger solution as you evaluate the risks.
 So sorry you?re struggling with this, it?s hard, I know!????
Gloria

-g ??
Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 16, 2018, at 11:17 PM, Sandy Millard <gcmarg at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?
> 
> I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food and water.  Is there a product that will boost what i am already using? 
> Sandy
> gcmarg at comcast.net
> 
> 
> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org


From gloriajhook at verizon.net  Wed Oct 17 10:35:18 2018
From: gloriajhook at verizon.net (Gloria)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 08:35:18 -0700
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
In-Reply-To: <157934234.5.1539774293963@localhost>
References: <157934234.5.1539774293963@localhost>
Message-ID: <3CCBBBF7-B145-4782-9004-D2AF8989B2C2@verizon.net>

Compounding pharmacy link-don?t have to join website to read info: 
https://www.pharmacist.com/frequently-asked-questions-about-pharmaceutical-compounding

A compound pharmacy will prepare prescription in the dose&form that your vet (or doctor) prescribes ?- whereas a regular pharmacy only gives you meds that are already prepared by a pharmaceutical company


-g ??
Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 4:05 AM, Sandy Millard <gcmarg at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> Thank you. What do you mean "a compound pharmacy"?
> After reading as much as possible, all I can do is keep Sonny comfortable and make sure he eats good food.
> I dread what is to come. 
> 
> 
> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> From: gloriajhook at verizon.net
> To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> Cc: gcmarg at comcast.net
> Sent: 2018-10-17 3:37:54 AM 
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
> 
> I would get an antibiotic to help their compromised immune system and suggest a compound pharmacy to provide a liquid form- I?m no vet, and do not have medical training , so, take this as a layman talking-I currently have 15 cats in our home-strictly inside only-so take this as only a layperson sharing?imho- you need a stronger solution as you evaluate the risks.
> So sorry you?re struggling with this, it?s hard, I know!????
> Gloria
> 
> -g ??
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Oct 16, 2018, at 11:17 PM, Sandy Millard <gcmarg at comcast.net> wrote:
>> 
>> I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?
>> 
>> I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food and water.  Is there a product that will boost what i am already using? 
>> Sandy
>> gcmarg at comcast.net
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
>> _______________________________________________
>> Felvtalk mailing list
>> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
>> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
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From bchapel at optonline.net  Wed Oct 17 11:51:28 2018
From: bchapel at optonline.net (ROBERT CHAPEL)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 12:51:28 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Felvtalk] URI and FIV
In-Reply-To: <mailman.42.1539790533.155990.felvtalk_felineleukemia.org@felineleukemia.org>
References: <mailman.42.1539790533.155990.felvtalk_felineleukemia.org@felineleukemia.org>
Message-ID: <7c3d0532.40a87.16682f075dc.Webtop.44@optonline.net>

Please don't get too freaked out about their URI's.... We have a lot of 
FIV cats at the shelter and they weather the URI's as well as the 
others...Yours may well too.? I agree that they should have ABX if the 
infection has taken hold and particularly if there is green purulent 
exudate...? If they are hard to pill a compounding pharmacy is a great 
idea ( always found liquids FAR easier to administer to uncooperative 
Kitties.....? thanks for your concern for these kitties...


Bob

> Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
> Message-ID: <238687431.1.1539756882239 at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help 
> minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?
>
> I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food 
> and water.  Is there a product that will boost what i am already 
> using? Sandy
> gcmarg at comcast.net
>
>
> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 00:35:47 -0700
> From: Gloria To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> Cc: gcmarg at comcast.net
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
> Message-ID: <650B71E7-F77C-4084-97AE-1BC758001FB0 at verizon.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=utf-8
>
> I would get an antibiotic to help their compromised immune system and 
> suggest a compound pharmacy to provide a liquid form- I?m no vet, and 
> do not have medical training , so, take this as a layman talking-I 
> currently have 15 cats in our home-strictly inside only-so take this 
> as only a layperson sharing?imho- you need a stronger solution as you 
> evaluate the risks.
>  So sorry you?re struggling with this, it?s hard, I know!????
> Gloria
>
> -g ??
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Oct 16, 2018, at 11:17 PM, Sandy Millard  wrote:
>>
>> I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help 
>> minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?
>>
>> I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food 
>> and water.  Is there a product that will boost what i am already 
>> using? Sandy
>> gcmarg at comcast.net
>>
>>
>> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
>> _______________________________________________
>> Felvtalk mailing list
>> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
>> 
>> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> From: Sandy Millard To: ,  Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive 
> support urgent
> Message-ID: <157934234.5.1539774293963 at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Thank you. What do you mean "a compound pharmacy"?
> After reading as much as possible, all I can do is keep Sonny 
> comfortable and make sure he eats good food.
> I dread what is to come.



From pilotom at bellsouth.net  Wed Oct 17 12:24:42 2018
From: pilotom at bellsouth.net (Maribel Piloto)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 17:24:42 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [Felvtalk] URI and FIV
In-Reply-To: <7c3d0532.40a87.16682f075dc.Webtop.44@optonline.net>
References: <mailman.42.1539790533.155990.felvtalk_felineleukemia.org@felineleukemia.org>
	<7c3d0532.40a87.16682f075dc.Webtop.44@optonline.net>
Message-ID: <1576005712.12269744.1539797082485@mail.yahoo.com>

Hi Sandy,
Very often what they have is the Herpes Virus which is VERY common in cats.? ?They then have flareups every once in a while which manifest as an URI.? ?You can add a supplement to their food called L-Lysine which will reduce the flareups and help with any current ones.? I purchase this one from Amazon which is just a white powder I sprinkle on their food...
https://www.amazon.com/Vetoquinol-Viralys-L-Lysine-Supplement-3-5oz/dp/B000FULBT4/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539797038&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=vyralis+l-lysine
Maribel?"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
-Mohandas Ghandi

      From: ROBERT CHAPEL <bchapel at optonline.net>
 To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org 
 Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2018 12:52 PM
 Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] URI and FIV
   
Please don't get too freaked out about their URI's.... We have a lot of 
FIV cats at the shelter and they weather the URI's as well as the 
others...Yours may well too.? I agree that they should have ABX if the 
infection has taken hold and particularly if there is green purulent 
exudate...? If they are hard to pill a compounding pharmacy is a great 
idea ( always found liquids FAR easier to administer to uncooperative 
Kitties.....? thanks for your concern for these kitties...


Bob

> Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
> Message-ID: <238687431.1.1539756882239 at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help 
> minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?
>
> I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food 
> and water.? Is there a product that will boost what i am already 
> using? Sandy
> gcmarg at comcast.net
>
>
> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 00:35:47 -0700
> From: Gloria To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> Cc: gcmarg at comcast.net
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
> Message-ID: <650B71E7-F77C-4084-97AE-1BC758001FB0 at verizon.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;??? charset=utf-8
>
> I would get an antibiotic to help their compromised immune system and 
> suggest a compound pharmacy to provide a liquid form- I?m no vet, and 
> do not have medical training , so, take this as a layman talking-I 
> currently have 15 cats in our home-strictly inside only-so take this 
> as only a layperson sharing?imho- you need a stronger solution as you 
> evaluate the risks.
>? So sorry you?re struggling with this, it?s hard, I know!????
> Gloria
>
> -g ??
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Oct 16, 2018, at 11:17 PM, Sandy Millard? wrote:
>>
>> I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help 
>> minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?
>>
>> I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food 
>> and water.? Is there a product that will boost what i am already 
>> using? Sandy
>> gcmarg at comcast.net
>>
>>
>> Sent from Xfinity Connect Application
>> _______________________________________________
>> Felvtalk mailing list
>> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
>> 
>> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> From: Sandy Millard To: ,? Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive 
> support urgent
> Message-ID: <157934234.5.1539774293963 at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Thank you. What do you mean "a compound pharmacy"?
> After reading as much as possible, all I can do is keep Sonny 
> comfortable and make sure he eats good food.
> I dread what is to come.


_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org


   
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From aoakley at oakleylegal.com  Wed Oct 17 18:10:42 2018
From: aoakley at oakleylegal.com (Amani Oakley)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 23:10:42 +0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
In-Reply-To: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>
References: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>
Message-ID: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE071@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>

Hi Sandy

I will step in here, and repeat what I have told so many others on this chatline.

I am cutting and pasting from one of my first ever posts on this forum:

I would like to share what I think is very important information with others who have cats diagnosed with Feline Leukemia.
 

"I am new to this forum so I don't know if my post (below) can be seen by other members of the discussion forum. If so, I apologize for reposting it a few times today in response to a few of the posts.

I had a cat with leukemia as a kitten, and he lived to the age of 7 and died from something else that I don't believe was related to the leukemia. When the vets told me that they could do nothing for him as a kitten dying with leukemia (and he WAS dying - his red cells were dropping down to nothing and I had given him TWO blood transfusions that weren't holding up his numbers to any great degree) then as a last ditch effort, I tried some Winstrol I had in the cupboard that a previous vet had given to me for another cat. 
 
This medication turned him completely around. To monitor his condition, we were performing weekly blood tests on him - CBC, liver function, etc. After being put on the Winstrol, his red cells and white cell counts began to climb very quickly and steadily. It was totally amazing and the vets couldn't believe the lab results either. My beautiful little boy was out of the woods in about six months. We were obsessively checking the pinkness of his ears, gums and pads to check the status of his profound anemia, and to our unbelievable joy, he began to get pink and his lab results just kept getting better after only a few days on the medication. After about a year, I called back the internal medicine veterinarian we had seen, and who had told us there was no hope, and told him of our beautiful cat's recovery. To my surprise - and a little bit of anger - he said that I had gone "old school" and that Winstrol used to be used but then there were rumours of possible liver damage associated with it, and vets stopped prescribing it. This REALLY annoyed me. My cat was dying and no one thought that maybe, just maybe, some treatment - even with a potential side effect - was better than no treatment??? In our experience, on a few occasions the liver enzymes would indeed rise, but would drop back down to normal fairly quickly after a short break from the Winstrol. We monitored our beautiful Zander very closely during and after his initial crisis, and if I thought that maybe he was looking pale again, or if the CBC came back with a significantly dropping red cell count, we would put him back on the Winstrol for a 4 to 6 week period, and it would fix him right up.

The Winstrol also really helped to increase his appetite so I could get him to eat when he was so very sick.

I used it at a level of 1 mg two times a day when he was really sick, and when he started to recover, I cut it back to 1 mg a day, or even 1/2 mg a day for a maintenance dose. I would pair it with prednisone (5 mg) and Doxycycline (50 mg) as well.

I have looked after a very large number of strays over the years and I have a science and medicine background in science and microbiology and laboratory medicine, so I tested and analyzed the lab results we were getting, using this knowledge. I have since used Winstrol in my cats in a number of other situations where vets have told me there is no hope, and I have to say that it has come through more often than not.

I therefore could not understand the reluctance of the veterinary - and medical community for that matter - to consider Winstrol, especially in circumstances where vets are telling pet owners that there are no other options and their kitten or cat will die.

I have had to do a fair amount of internet research and spoken to a number of veterinarians about this. I have personally concluded that due to the association of Winstrol with athletic doping scandals, the scientific community as a whole has decided to abandon what might indeed be a promising drug. This saddens me but I simply can see no other explanation. I mean really - does it make sense to hear from vets that the drug MAY cause liver disease, when your animal is dying???? Wouldn't you give that option in those circumstances, and let the pet owner understand the risks??? Personally, I think that the risk of permanent liver damage is not a significant risk. The information I have been able to find - buried so very deeply as to be almost unable to be found on the Internet - points to any change in the liver enzymes as being transitory and not representing any lasting liver damage. That was certainly our experience. Because Zander's condition was so dire, even when his liver enzymes started to go up, I decided to keep him on the Winstrol because I could see that his bone marrow had turned back on again and he was producing red cells ( with his reticulocyte level starting to go up from basically a zero level). He was eating and looking better, so I grit my teeth and proceeded with the Winstrol. I suspect that many vets might have abandoned ship at that point, and pulled the Winstrol before it had had an opportunity to really have the desired effect, but my vet was at least good enough to recognize that if this treatment didn't work, my cat was out of luck, and she allowed me to continue on with the Winstrol since Zander was doing better in so many other ways.

This was also our experience when I used Winstrol in another very elderly cat who had a large and aggressive sarcoma in her sinus cavity, and again who was not expected to live very long. She lived another 3 years after the diagnosis (she was around 19 when she passed away), and I believe that the Winstrol helped immensely in getting her to keep eating, and to keep the swelling under control. With her, we definitely found that her liver enzymes spiked dramatically with the use of the Winstrol, but settled down immediately with a brief discontinuance of the drug.

Zander died at age 7 from cardiomyopathy - nothing to do with his liver. I tortured myself with thoughts that maybe the Winstrol had caused the cardiomyopathy, and for all I know, it did. However, again, I did a fair amount of research and initially, I found references to a link between Winstrol and cardiac damage, but the link was pretty tenuous at best, and seemed to be suspected in athletes who had taken Winstrol at 100 X the recommended dosages for years and years. My guilt has never gone away because of course, you never know, but what I do know is that I would have lost him when he was only a year old. If the Winstrol managed to give me 6 more very good years with my cat, who played and was exceptionally affectionate and showed an extreme happiness with his life, then I would have to say I have no hesitation in doing it again.
 
What I find truly bizarre is that given the death sentence that this disease represents to cats, it should be very simple indeed to (a) have vets try the Winstrol and see what their experience is with it (with the proviso that they shouldn't pull a cat off the Winstrol just because the liver enzymes start to go up) and (b) why haven't there been some decent clinical trials with this stuff? The cats are zero given probability of surviving this disease. Even if Winstrol only works sometimes, that is better than the odds we are given for these cats at the moment."



Sandy - let me also point out that with further experience, I am now very firmly of the view that it was the combination of Doxycycline, Winstrol (stanozalol) and prednisone that was effective. Doxycycline is an antibiotic which has interesting and effective properties against other viruses and parasites as well. It is my hypothesis that the Doxycycline prevents the FeLV virus from properly replicating (as it has been scientifically established to interfere with cell wall synthesis in some other viruses), and simultaneously, the WInstrol works on the bone marrow to get it to turn back on and start producing the progenitor cells (immatures) of the red cell, white cell and platelet lines. Winstrol is used in humans for severe and intractable hereditary anemia, and of course, athletes use it to build up muscle and heal injured tissues.

You will need the compounding pharmacy to get the Winstrol, and you will need a vet who is onside. Some people on this forum have had good success with this combination of medication.

Amani

-----Original Message-----
From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of Sandy Millard
Sent: October 17, 2018 2:18 AM
To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Cc: gcmarg at comcast.net
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent

I adopted 2 male cats with fiv. Can anyone give me info to help minimize the symptoms of upper respiratory infections?

I am using homeopathic nasal, cough, and immune support in their food and water.  Is there a product that will boost what i am already using? 
Sandy
gcmarg at comcast.net


Sent from Xfinity Connect Application


From gloriajhook at verizon.net  Wed Oct 17 21:48:36 2018
From: gloriajhook at verizon.net (Gloria)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 19:48:36 -0700
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
In-Reply-To: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE071@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
References: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE071@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
Message-ID: <2C85B4A1-D737-46B3-87D6-920A0E0FEA73@verizon.net>

Amani-
FYI
Sandy said FIV, not FeLV-not sure if it makes any difference, tho?.???
Gloria


-g ??
Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 4:10 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Sandy
> 
> I will step in here, and repeat what I have told so many others on this chatline.
> 
> I am cutting and pasting from one of my first ever posts on this forum:
> 
> I would like to share what I think is very important information with others who have cats diagnosed with Feline Leukemia.
> 
> 
> "I am new to this forum so I don't know if my post (below) can be seen by other members of the discussion forum. If so, I apologize for reposting it a few times today in response to a few of the posts.
> 
> I had a cat with leukemia as a kitten, and he lived to the age of 7 and died from something else that I don't believe was related to the leukemia. When the vets told me that they could do nothing for him as a kitten dying with leukemia (and he WAS dying - his red cells were dropping down to nothing and I had given him TWO blood transfusions that weren't holding up his numbers to any great degree) then as a last ditch effort, I tried some Winstrol I had in the cupboard that a previous vet had given to me for another cat. 
> 
> This medication turned him completely around. To monitor his condition, we were performing weekly blood tests on him - CBC, liver function, etc. After being put on the Winstrol, his red cells and white cell counts began to climb very quickly and steadily. It was totally amazing and the vets couldn't believe the lab results either. My beautiful little boy was out of the woods in about six months. We were obsessively checking the pinkness of his ears, gums and pads to check the status of his profound anemia, and to our unbelievable joy, he began to get pink and his lab results just kept getting better after only a few days on the medication. After about a year, I called back the internal medicine veterinarian we had seen, and who had told us there was no hope, and told him of our beautiful cat's recovery. To my surprise - and a little bit of anger - he said that I had gone "old school" and that Winstrol used to be used but then there were rumours of possible liver damage associated wit
> h it, and vets stopped prescribing it. This REALLY annoyed me. My cat was dying and no one thought that maybe, just maybe, some treatment - even with a potential side effect - was better than no treatment??? In our experience, on a few occasions the liver enzymes would indeed rise, but would drop back down to normal fairly quickly after a short break from the Winstrol. We monitored our beautiful Zander very closely during and after his initial crisis, and if I thought that maybe he was looking pale again, or if the CBC came back with a significantly dropping red cell count, we would put him back on the Winstrol for a 4 to 6 week period, and it would fix him right up.
> 
> The Winstrol also really helped to increase his appetite so I could get him to eat when he was so very sick.
> 
> I used it at a level of 1 mg two times a day when he was really sick, and when he started to recover, I cut it back to 1 mg a day, or even 1/2 mg a day for a maintenance dose. I would pair it with prednisone (5 mg) and Doxycycline (50 mg) as well.
> 
> I have looked after a very large number of strays over the years and I have a science and medicine background in science and microbiology and laboratory medicine, so I tested and analyzed the lab results we were getting, using this knowledge. I have since used Winstrol in my cats in a number of other situations where vets have told me there is no hope, and I have to say that it has come through more often than not.
> 
> I therefore could not understand the reluctance of the veterinary - and medical community for that matter - to consider Winstrol, especially in circumstances where vets are telling pet owners that there are no other options and their kitten or cat will die.
> 
> I have had to do a fair amount of internet research and spoken to a number of veterinarians about this. I have personally concluded that due to the association of Winstrol with athletic doping scandals, the scientific community as a whole has decided to abandon what might indeed be a promising drug. This saddens me but I simply can see no other explanation. I mean really - does it make sense to hear from vets that the drug MAY cause liver disease, when your animal is dying???? Wouldn't you give that option in those circumstances, and let the pet owner understand the risks??? Personally, I think that the risk of permanent liver damage is not a significant risk. The information I have been able to find - buried so very deeply as to be almost unable to be found on the Internet - points to any change in the liver enzymes as being transitory and not representing any lasting liver damage. That was certainly our experience. Because Zander's condition was so dire, even when his liver enzymes
>  started to go up, I decided to keep him on the Winstrol because I could see that his bone marrow had turned back on again and he was producing red cells ( with his reticulocyte level starting to go up from basically a zero level). He was eating and looking better, so I grit my teeth and proceeded with the Winstrol. I suspect that many vets might have abandoned ship at that point, and pulled the Winstrol before it had had an opportunity to really have the desired effect, but my vet was at least good enough to recognize that if this treatment didn't work, my cat was out of luck, and she allowed me to continue on with the Winstrol since Zander was doing better in so many other ways.
> 
> This was also our experience when I used Winstrol in another very elderly cat who had a large and aggressive sarcoma in her sinus cavity, and again who was not expected to live very long. She lived another 3 years after the diagnosis (she was around 19 when she passed away), and I believe that the Winstrol helped immensely in getting her to keep eating, and to keep the swelling under control. With her, we definitely found that her liver enzymes spiked dramatically with the use of the Winstrol, but settled down immediately with a brief discontinuance of the drug.
> 
> Zander died at age 7 from cardiomyopathy - nothing to do with his liver. I tortured myself with thoughts that maybe the Winstrol had caused the cardiomyopathy, and for all I know, it did. However, again, I did a fair amount of research and initially, I found references to a link between Winstrol and cardiac damage, but the link was pretty tenuous at best, and seemed to be suspected in athletes who had taken Winstrol at 100 X the recommended dosages for years and years. My guilt has never gone away because of course, you never know, but what I do know is that I would have lost him when he was only a year old. If the Winstrol managed to give me 6 more very good years with my cat, who played and was exceptionally affectionate and showed an extreme happiness with his life, then I would have to say I have no hesitation in doing it again.
> 
> What I find truly bizarre is that given the death sentence that this disease represents to cats, it should be very simple indeed to (a) have vets try the Winstrol and see what their experience is with it (with the proviso that they shouldn't pull a cat off the Winstrol just because the liver enzymes start to go up) and (b) why haven't there been some decent clinical trials with this stuff? The cats are zero given probability of surviving this disease. Even if Winstrol only works sometimes, that is better than the odds we are given for these cats at the moment."
> 
> 
> 
> Sandy - let me also point out that with further experience, I am now very firmly of the view that it was the combination of Doxycycline, Winstrol (stanozalol) and prednisone that was effective. Doxycycline is an antibiotic which has interesting and effective properties against other viruses and parasites as well. It is my hypothesis that the Doxycycline prevents the FeLV virus from properly replicating (as it has been scientifically established to interfere with cell wall synthesis in some other viruses), and simultaneously, the WInstrol works on the bone marrow to get it to turn back on and start producing the progenitor cells (immatures) of the red cell, white cell and platelet lines. Winstrol is used in humans for severe and intractable hereditary anemia, and of course, athletes use it to build up muscle and heal injured tissues.
> 
> You will need the compounding pharmacy to get the Winstrol, and you will need a vet who is onside. Some people on this forum have had good success with this combination of medication.
> 
> Amani



From aoakley at oakleylegal.com  Wed Oct 17 22:04:03 2018
From: aoakley at oakleylegal.com (Amani Oakley)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 03:04:03 +0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
In-Reply-To: <2C85B4A1-D737-46B3-87D6-920A0E0FEA73@verizon.net>
References: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE071@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<2C85B4A1-D737-46B3-87D6-920A0E0FEA73@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE26A@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>

I was confused about that because the "re" line said FeLV.

It doesn?t matter though. I have used the medication combo on a cat from a feral colony where FIV ran rampant and killed most of the cats. When I took mine in, she was very very sick as well. She pulled through on the med combination.

Amani

-----Original Message-----
From: Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org] On Behalf Of Gloria
Sent: October-17-18 10:49 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent

Amani-
FYI
Sandy said FIV, not FeLV-not sure if it makes any difference, tho?.???
Gloria


-g ??
Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 4:10 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Sandy
> 
> I will step in here, and repeat what I have told so many others on this chatline.
> 
> I am cutting and pasting from one of my first ever posts on this forum:
> 
> I would like to share what I think is very important information with others who have cats diagnosed with Feline Leukemia.
> 
> 
> "I am new to this forum so I don't know if my post (below) can be seen by other members of the discussion forum. If so, I apologize for reposting it a few times today in response to a few of the posts.
> 
> I had a cat with leukemia as a kitten, and he lived to the age of 7 and died from something else that I don't believe was related to the leukemia. When the vets told me that they could do nothing for him as a kitten dying with leukemia (and he WAS dying - his red cells were dropping down to nothing and I had given him TWO blood transfusions that weren't holding up his numbers to any great degree) then as a last ditch effort, I tried some Winstrol I had in the cupboard that a previous vet had given to me for another cat. 
> 
> This medication turned him completely around. To monitor his condition, we were performing weekly blood tests on him - CBC, liver function, etc. After being put on the Winstrol, his red cells and white cell counts began to climb very quickly and steadily. It was totally amazing and the vets couldn't believe the lab results either. My beautiful little boy was out of the woods in about six months. We were obsessively checking the pinkness of his ears, gums and pads to check the status of his profound anemia, and to our unbelievable joy, he began to get pink and his lab results just kept getting better after only a few days on the medication. After about a year, I called back the internal medicine veterinarian we had seen, and who had told us there was no hope, and told him of our beautiful cat's recovery. To my surprise - and a little bit of anger - he said that I had gone "old school" and that Winstrol used to be used but then there were rumours of possible liver damage associated wit
> h it, and vets stopped prescribing it. This REALLY annoyed me. My cat was dying and no one thought that maybe, just maybe, some treatment - even with a potential side effect - was better than no treatment??? In our experience, on a few occasions the liver enzymes would indeed rise, but would drop back down to normal fairly quickly after a short break from the Winstrol. We monitored our beautiful Zander very closely during and after his initial crisis, and if I thought that maybe he was looking pale again, or if the CBC came back with a significantly dropping red cell count, we would put him back on the Winstrol for a 4 to 6 week period, and it would fix him right up.
> 
> The Winstrol also really helped to increase his appetite so I could get him to eat when he was so very sick.
> 
> I used it at a level of 1 mg two times a day when he was really sick, and when he started to recover, I cut it back to 1 mg a day, or even 1/2 mg a day for a maintenance dose. I would pair it with prednisone (5 mg) and Doxycycline (50 mg) as well.
> 
> I have looked after a very large number of strays over the years and I have a science and medicine background in science and microbiology and laboratory medicine, so I tested and analyzed the lab results we were getting, using this knowledge. I have since used Winstrol in my cats in a number of other situations where vets have told me there is no hope, and I have to say that it has come through more often than not.
> 
> I therefore could not understand the reluctance of the veterinary - and medical community for that matter - to consider Winstrol, especially in circumstances where vets are telling pet owners that there are no other options and their kitten or cat will die.
> 
> I have had to do a fair amount of internet research and spoken to a number of veterinarians about this. I have personally concluded that due to the association of Winstrol with athletic doping scandals, the scientific community as a whole has decided to abandon what might indeed be a promising drug. This saddens me but I simply can see no other explanation. I mean really - does it make sense to hear from vets that the drug MAY cause liver disease, when your animal is dying???? Wouldn't you give that option in those circumstances, and let the pet owner understand the risks??? Personally, I think that the risk of permanent liver damage is not a significant risk. The information I have been able to find - buried so very deeply as to be almost unable to be found on the Internet - points to any change in the liver enzymes as being transitory and not representing any lasting liver damage. That was certainly our experience. Because Zander's condition was so dire, even when his liver enzymes
>  started to go up, I decided to keep him on the Winstrol because I could see that his bone marrow had turned back on again and he was producing red cells ( with his reticulocyte level starting to go up from basically a zero level). He was eating and looking better, so I grit my teeth and proceeded with the Winstrol. I suspect that many vets might have abandoned ship at that point, and pulled the Winstrol before it had had an opportunity to really have the desired effect, but my vet was at least good enough to recognize that if this treatment didn't work, my cat was out of luck, and she allowed me to continue on with the Winstrol since Zander was doing better in so many other ways.
> 
> This was also our experience when I used Winstrol in another very elderly cat who had a large and aggressive sarcoma in her sinus cavity, and again who was not expected to live very long. She lived another 3 years after the diagnosis (she was around 19 when she passed away), and I believe that the Winstrol helped immensely in getting her to keep eating, and to keep the swelling under control. With her, we definitely found that her liver enzymes spiked dramatically with the use of the Winstrol, but settled down immediately with a brief discontinuance of the drug.
> 
> Zander died at age 7 from cardiomyopathy - nothing to do with his liver. I tortured myself with thoughts that maybe the Winstrol had caused the cardiomyopathy, and for all I know, it did. However, again, I did a fair amount of research and initially, I found references to a link between Winstrol and cardiac damage, but the link was pretty tenuous at best, and seemed to be suspected in athletes who had taken Winstrol at 100 X the recommended dosages for years and years. My guilt has never gone away because of course, you never know, but what I do know is that I would have lost him when he was only a year old. If the Winstrol managed to give me 6 more very good years with my cat, who played and was exceptionally affectionate and showed an extreme happiness with his life, then I would have to say I have no hesitation in doing it again.
> 
> What I find truly bizarre is that given the death sentence that this disease represents to cats, it should be very simple indeed to (a) have vets try the Winstrol and see what their experience is with it (with the proviso that they shouldn't pull a cat off the Winstrol just because the liver enzymes start to go up) and (b) why haven't there been some decent clinical trials with this stuff? The cats are zero given probability of surviving this disease. Even if Winstrol only works sometimes, that is better than the odds we are given for these cats at the moment."
> 
> 
> 
> Sandy - let me also point out that with further experience, I am now very firmly of the view that it was the combination of Doxycycline, Winstrol (stanozalol) and prednisone that was effective. Doxycycline is an antibiotic which has interesting and effective properties against other viruses and parasites as well. It is my hypothesis that the Doxycycline prevents the FeLV virus from properly replicating (as it has been scientifically established to interfere with cell wall synthesis in some other viruses), and simultaneously, the WInstrol works on the bone marrow to get it to turn back on and start producing the progenitor cells (immatures) of the red cell, white cell and platelet lines. Winstrol is used in humans for severe and intractable hereditary anemia, and of course, athletes use it to build up muscle and heal injured tissues.
> 
> You will need the compounding pharmacy to get the Winstrol, and you will need a vet who is onside. Some people on this forum have had good success with this combination of medication.
> 
> Amani


_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org

From gloriajhook at verizon.net  Thu Oct 18 01:46:40 2018
From: gloriajhook at verizon.net (Gloria)
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 23:46:40 -0700
Subject: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
In-Reply-To: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE26A@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
References: <238687431.1.1539756882239@localhost>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE071@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<2C85B4A1-D737-46B3-87D6-920A0E0FEA73@verizon.net>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE26A@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
Message-ID: <1697E3B7-1D5D-4155-AC56-5173B77873BA@verizon.net>

Amani-I thought that the meds you talked about might be beneficial for both since both are viruses-?thanks!

note: keeping the previous emails attached for context-hope this is okay?
Gloria
-g ??
Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 8:04 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com> wrote:
> 
> I was confused about that because the "re" line said FeLV.
> 
> It doesn?t matter though. I have used the medication combo on a cat from a feral colony where FIV ran rampant and killed most of the cats. When I took mine in, she was very very sick as well. She pulled through on the med combination.
> 
> Amani
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org] On Behalf Of Gloria
> Sent: October-17-18 10:49 PM
> To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Felv positive support urgent
> 
> Amani-
> FYI
> Sandy said FIV, not FeLV-not sure if it makes any difference, tho?.???
> Gloria
> 
> 
> -g ??
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Oct 17, 2018, at 4:10 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Sandy
>> 
>> I will step in here, and repeat what I have told so many others on this chatline.
>> 
>> I am cutting and pasting from one of my first ever posts on this forum:
>> 
>> I would like to share what I think is very important information with others who have cats diagnosed with Feline Leukemia.
>> 
>> 
>> "I am new to this forum so I don't know if my post (below) can be seen by other members of the discussion forum. If so, I apologize for reposting it a few times today in response to a few of the posts.
>> 
>> I had a cat with leukemia as a kitten, and he lived to the age of 7 and died from something else that I don't believe was related to the leukemia. When the vets told me that they could do nothing for him as a kitten dying with leukemia (and he WAS dying - his red cells were dropping down to nothing and I had given him TWO blood transfusions that weren't holding up his numbers to any great degree) then as a last ditch effort, I tried some Winstrol I had in the cupboard that a previous vet had given to me for another cat. 
>> 
>> This medication turned him completely around. To monitor his condition, we were performing weekly blood tests on him - CBC, liver function, etc. After being put on the Winstrol, his red cells and white cell counts began to climb very quickly and steadily. It was totally amazing and the vets couldn't believe the lab results either. My beautiful little boy was out of the woods in about six months. We were obsessively checking the pinkness of his ears,



From ktbrown15 at gmail.com  Thu Oct 18 11:20:35 2018
From: ktbrown15 at gmail.com (katy brown)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 12:20:35 -0400
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
Message-ID: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>

Hello,
I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested
positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests
later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still
tested positive while his brother was negative.

Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great. I was away on
vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week
ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could
be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back
home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed
he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency
room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him
with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost
further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital,
which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he
was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and
blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or
spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely
lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV
positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming
completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the
bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours
he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was
jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last
night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike
him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from
completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent
that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very
very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not
optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if
there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like
him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away
quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned,
and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep
him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would
be appreciated.

Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I
emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
-------------- next part --------------
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From aoakley at oakleylegal.com  Thu Oct 18 11:54:34 2018
From: aoakley at oakleylegal.com (Amani Oakley)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 16:54:34 +0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>

I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.

With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.

Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.

It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of katy brown
Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hello,
I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.

Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great. I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
-------------- next part --------------
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From ktbrown15 at gmail.com  Thu Oct 18 14:27:59 2018
From: ktbrown15 at gmail.com (Katy Brown)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 15:27:59 -0400
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
Message-ID: <BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>

Amani,
That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days? 
I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer? 
Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com> wrote:
> 
> I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.
>  
> With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.
>  
> Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was  doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.  
>  
> It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of katy brown
> Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
> To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hello,
> I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.
>  
> Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great. I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>  
> Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
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From aoakley at oakleylegal.com  Thu Oct 18 14:35:21 2018
From: aoakley at oakleylegal.com (Amani Oakley)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 19:35:21 +0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE64E@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>

I think you?re right that the decline is way too fast to be accounted for, by cancer. If it were me, I would give him a high dose of prednisone ? 20 mg for maybe two days, and then drop back to 5 mg. I would also try him on the Winstrol, but in the very short-term, I think it may be the prednisolone which might do the best good. However, of course, you?re shooting in the dark because it is not clear what your target is. Try the high dose prednisone for a few days and see if he responds.

I don?t think that the chemo makes sense if the vet hasn?t identified a tumour and of course, the side effects are likely to worsen your cat?s condition. The good thing about what I am suggesting is that it may or may not work, but it is unlikely to leave him in a worse state, which cannot be said for the chemo. I would therefore try the prednisolone and Winstrol before I agreed to more chemo if it were my cat.

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of Katy Brown
Sent: October 18, 2018 3:28 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Amani,
That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days?
I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer?
Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com<mailto:aoakley at oakleylegal.com>> wrote:
I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.

With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.

Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.

It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of katy brown
Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hello,
I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.

Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great. I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
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From veery at bellsouth.net  Thu Oct 18 15:29:12 2018
From: veery at bellsouth.net (Shelley Theye)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 16:29:12 -0400
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <F477E64C-5D21-4335-B20B-D4654491C6B6@bellsouth.net>

Hi Katy,

So sorry that Batman is going through this!

Did they look at Batman?s heart while he was at the vet hospital?  Specifically did they do an echocardiogram?  I am guessing that they had no reason to with his initial symptoms so they probably didn?t?

Maybe he has heart disease that the steroids have exacerbated... Young cats can have it and not have any outward symptoms.  Steroids are contraindicated with heart problems.  I think there is one type that can be used, but it is not usually given first.  

Just throwing this out there just in case.  Steroids could hurt his heart if he has undiagnosed heart problem and maybe cause him to act like.
Not to scare you, just to get him treated for it if it is that.

Shelley   



> On Oct 18, 2018, at 3:27 PM, Katy Brown <ktbrown15 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Amani,
> That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
> The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days? 
> I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer? 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com <mailto:aoakley at oakleylegalcom>> wrote:
> 
>> I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.
>>  
>> With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.
>>  
>> Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.  
>>  
>> It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.
>>  
>> Amani
>>  
>> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of katy brown
>> Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
>> To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
>> Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>>  
>> Hello,
>> I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.
>>  
>> Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>>  
>> Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Felvtalk mailing list
>> Felvtalk at felineleukemiaorg <mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
>> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org <http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org>
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org <http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org>
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From aoakley at oakleylegal.com  Thu Oct 18 15:57:02 2018
From: aoakley at oakleylegal.com (Amani Oakley)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 20:57:02 +0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <F477E64C-5D21-4335-B20B-D4654491C6B6@bellsouth.net>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
	<F477E64C-5D21-4335-B20B-D4654491C6B6@bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6C1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>

Hi Shelley. Are you speaking about anabolic steroids or corticosteroids? And what type in particular? I think that there may be a particular steroid which has been linked with heart issues sometimes but it is prednisolone (which is a corticosteroid) and it isn?t Winstrol (which is an anabolic steroid).

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of Shelley Theye
Sent: October 18, 2018 4:29 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hi Katy,

So sorry that Batman is going through this!

Did they look at Batman?s heart while he was at the vet hospital?  Specifically did they do an echocardiogram?  I am guessing that they had no reason to with his initial symptoms so they probably didn?t?

Maybe he has heart disease that the steroids have exacerbated... Young cats can have it and not have any outward symptoms.  Steroids are contraindicated with heart problems.  I think there is one type that can be used, but it is not usually given first.

Just throwing this out there just in case.  Steroids could hurt his heart if he has undiagnosed heart problem and maybe cause him to act like.
Not to scare you, just to get him treated for it if it is that.

Shelley




On Oct 18, 2018, at 3:27 PM, Katy Brown <ktbrown15 at gmail.com<mailto:ktbrown15 at gmail.com>> wrote:

Amani,
That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days?
I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer?
Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com<mailto:aoakley at oakleylegalcom>> wrote:
I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.

With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.

Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.

It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of katy brown
Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hello,
I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.

Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemiaorg<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org

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From aoakley at oakleylegal.com  Thu Oct 18 15:59:51 2018
From: aoakley at oakleylegal.com (Amani Oakley)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 20:59:51 +0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6C1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
	<F477E64C-5D21-4335-B20B-D4654491C6B6@bellsouth.net>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6C1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
Message-ID: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6DF@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>

Sorry Shelley ? my email below should have read IT ISN?T prednisolone. . .

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of Amani Oakley
Sent: October 18, 2018 4:57 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hi Shelley. Are you speaking about anabolic steroids or corticosteroids? And what type in particular? I think that there may be a particular steroid which has been linked with heart issues sometimes but it is prednisolone (which is a corticosteroid) and it isn?t Winstrol (which is an anabolic steroid).

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of Shelley Theye
Sent: October 18, 2018 4:29 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hi Katy,

So sorry that Batman is going through this!

Did they look at Batman?s heart while he was at the vet hospital?  Specifically did they do an echocardiogram?  I am guessing that they had no reason to with his initial symptoms so they probably didn?t?

Maybe he has heart disease that the steroids have exacerbated... Young cats can have it and not have any outward symptoms.  Steroids are contraindicated with heart problems.  I think there is one type that can be used, but it is not usually given first.

Just throwing this out there just in case.  Steroids could hurt his heart if he has undiagnosed heart problem and maybe cause him to act like.
Not to scare you, just to get him treated for it if it is that.

Shelley



On Oct 18, 2018, at 3:27 PM, Katy Brown <ktbrown15 at gmail.com<mailto:ktbrown15 at gmail.com>> wrote:

Amani,
That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days?
I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer?
Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com<mailto:aoakley at oakleylegalcom>> wrote:
I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.

With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.

Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.

It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of katy brown
Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hello,
I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.

Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemiaorg<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org

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From veery at bellsouth.net  Thu Oct 18 17:26:52 2018
From: veery at bellsouth.net (Shelley Theye)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 18:26:52 -0400
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6DF@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
	<F477E64C-5D21-4335-B20B-D4654491C6B6@bellsouth.net>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6C1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6DF@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
Message-ID: <90D1F860-26AB-4612-8C74-AADFA61D4092@bellsouth.net>

Hi Amani,

I was speaking about corticosteroids- Prednisone or Prednisolone.  Sorry for any confusion.
I have a cat, Jack, with heart disease who also has IBD so he cannot have steroids.
I believe there is one, which is called Budesonide?  that might act more locally in the intestines so 
it could be a bit safer if a cat has heart disease.  

My FeLV positive cat Leo, who became sick quickly back in 2014, was diagnosed with both Lymphoma and 
leukemia, his WBC count was through the roof, in the 150,000?s??  I would have to go back and look at the notes.
He was @ 5 years old. I trapped him in a neighbor?s yard to TNR, but 
he tested positive so I kept him. Anyway, after the vet visit, for mainly inappetence, he went downhill
very quickly and I thought the stress of the visit, x-rays, fluids, and pred. might have sent him into heart failure too.
That was a guess on my part.  He was an adult feral that I tamed once he tested positive for FeLV, and he was so afraid 
out of his environment that I never took him to get an echo.  I only suspected it as a possibility because he 
had a murmur when he was neutered, though not later, and would pant when playing too much with feather toy.
Something I will never know and it has always eaten away at me.

I am not in this group much anymore, but read the messages, and just wanted to mention to Katy, just in case.
Hopefully not that.

Shelley 








> On Oct 18, 2018, at 4:59 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com> wrote:
> 
> Sorry Shelley ? my email below should have read IT ISN?T prednisolone. . . 
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of Amani Oakley
> Sent: October 18, 2018 4:57 PM
> To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hi Shelley. Are you speaking about anabolic steroids or corticosteroids? And what type in particular? I think that there may be a particular steroid which has been linked with heart issues sometimes but it is prednisolone (which is a corticosteroid) and it isn?t Winstrol (which is an anabolic steroid).
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of Shelley Theye
> Sent: October 18, 2018 4:29 PM
> To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hi Katy,
>  
> So sorry that Batman is going through this!
>  
> Did they look at Batman?s heart while he was at the vet hospital?  Specifically did they do an echocardiogram?  I am guessing that they had no reason to with his initial symptoms so they probably didn?t?
>  
> Maybe he has heart disease that the steroids have exacerbated... Young cats can have it and not have any outward symptoms.  Steroids are contraindicated with heart problems.  I think there is one type that can be used, but it is not usually given first.  
>  
> Just throwing this out there just in case.  Steroids could hurt his heart if he has undiagnosed heart problem and maybe cause him to act like.
> Not to scare you, just to get him treated for it if it is that.
>  
> Shelley   
>  
>  
>  
> 
> On Oct 18, 2018, at 3:27 PM, Katy Brown <ktbrown15 at gmail.com <mailto:ktbrown15 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  
> Amani,
> That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
> The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days? 
> I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer? 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com <mailto:aoakley at oakleylegalcom>> wrote:
> 
> I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.
>  
> With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.
>  
> Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.  
>  
> It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of katy brown
> Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
> To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hello,
> I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.
>  
> Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>  
> Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemiaorg <mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org <http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org <http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org>
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
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From aoakley at oakleylegal.com  Thu Oct 18 17:34:05 2018
From: aoakley at oakleylegal.com (Amani Oakley)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 22:34:05 +0000
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <90D1F860-26AB-4612-8C74-AADFA61D4092@bellsouth.net>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
	<F477E64C-5D21-4335-B20B-D4654491C6B6@bellsouth.net>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6C1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6DF@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<90D1F860-26AB-4612-8C74-AADFA61D4092@bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE7B1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>

Hi Shelley. Thanks for clarifying. I really didn?t know that prednisolone could have negative effects on the heart. However, I have had the experience of a cat with a heart murmur. Eventually, after we had looked after her for a while, the heart murmur disappeared.

However, if your cat pants after playing for a while, you are right that one of the reasons may well be heart issues.

You obviously have a terrific heart to take in a feral like that and keep him when you found he was positive. What a nice person.

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, though, again, I kinda feel that in some circumstances like FeLV, whether there are potential side-effects from some of the meds, there are few choices and I would probably take the risk if my cat was doing poorly (as mine was). Thank you though for that information, which I definitely did not know. I will have to keep it in mind.

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of Shelley Theye
Sent: October 18, 2018 6:27 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hi Amani,

I was speaking about corticosteroids- Prednisone or Prednisolone.  Sorry for any confusion.
I have a cat, Jack, with heart disease who also has IBD so he cannot have steroids.
I believe there is one, which is called Budesonide?  that might act more locally in the intestines so
it could be a bit safer if a cat has heart disease.

My FeLV positive cat Leo, who became sick quickly back in 2014, was diagnosed with both Lymphoma and
leukemia, his WBC count was through the roof, in the 150,000?s??  I would have to go back and look at the notes.
He was @ 5 years old. I trapped him in a neighbor?s yard to TNR, but
he tested positive so I kept him. Anyway, after the vet visit, for mainly inappetence, he went downhill
very quickly and I thought the stress of the visit, x-rays, fluids, and pred. might have sent him into heart failure too.
That was a guess on my part.  He was an adult feral that I tamed once he tested positive for FeLV, and he was so afraid
out of his environment that I never took him to get an echo.  I only suspected it as a possibility because he
had a murmur when he was neutered, though not later, and would pant when playing too much with feather toy.
Something I will never know and it has always eaten away at me.

I am not in this group much anymore, but read the messages, and just wanted to mention to Katy, just in case.
Hopefully not that.

Shelley








On Oct 18, 2018, at 4:59 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com<mailto:aoakley at oakleylegal.com>> wrote:

Sorry Shelley ? my email below should have read IT ISN?T prednisolone. . .

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of Amani Oakley
Sent: October 18, 2018 4:57 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hi Shelley. Are you speaking about anabolic steroids or corticosteroids? And what type in particular? I think that there may be a particular steroid which has been linked with heart issues sometimes but it is prednisolone (which is a corticosteroid) and it isn?t Winstrol (which is an anabolic steroid).

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of Shelley Theye
Sent: October 18, 2018 4:29 PM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hi Katy,

So sorry that Batman is going through this!

Did they look at Batman?s heart while he was at the vet hospital?  Specifically did they do an echocardiogram?  I am guessing that they had no reason to with his initial symptoms so they probably didn?t?

Maybe he has heart disease that the steroids have exacerbated... Young cats can have it and not have any outward symptoms.  Steroids are contraindicated with heart problems.  I think there is one type that can be used, but it is not usually given first.

Just throwing this out there just in case.  Steroids could hurt his heart if he has undiagnosed heart problem and maybe cause him to act like.
Not to scare you, just to get him treated for it if it is that.

Shelley



On Oct 18, 2018, at 3:27 PM, Katy Brown <ktbrown15 at gmail.com<mailto:ktbrown15 at gmail.com>> wrote:

Amani,
That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days?
I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer?
Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com<mailto:aoakley at oakleylegalcom>> wrote:
I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.

With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.

Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.

It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.

Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org<mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of katy brown
Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.

Hello,
I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.

Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemiaorg<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org

_______________________________________________
Felvtalk mailing list
Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org<mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org

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From veery at bellsouth.net  Thu Oct 18 17:39:29 2018
From: veery at bellsouth.net (Shelley Theye)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 18:39:29 -0400
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE7B1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE4C5@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<BC28E860-6FCD-4F7E-B401-70FEE2E18F0A@gmail.com>
	<F477E64C-5D21-4335-B20B-D4654491C6B6@bellsouth.net>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6C1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE6DF@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
	<90D1F860-26AB-4612-8C74-AADFA61D4092@bellsouth.net>
	<E0C1DFB06E10174B9D4AE353A62CECE3031E7AE7B1@OAKLEYSRV.oakley.local>
Message-ID: <8DB10B93-CDE7-4F17-B3D4-3A90B7E35719@bellsouth.net>

Thanks Amani.  I agree with you.  

Shelley 


> On Oct 18, 2018, at 6:34 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Shelley. Thanks for clarifying. I really didn?t know that prednisolone could have negative effects on the heart. However, I have had the experience of a cat with a heart murmur. Eventually, after we had looked after her for a while, the heart murmur disappeared.
>  
> However, if your cat pants after playing for a while, you are right that one of the reasons may well be heart issues.
>  
> You obviously have a terrific heart to take in a feral like that and keep him when you found he was positive. What a nice person.
>  
> Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, though, again, I kinda feel that in some circumstances like FeLV, whether there are potential side-effects from some of the meds, there are few choices and I would probably take the risk if my cat was doing poorly (as mine was). Thank you though for that information, which I definitely did not know. I will have to keep it in mind.
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of Shelley Theye
> Sent: October 18, 2018 6:27 PM
> To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hi Amani,
>  
> I was speaking about corticosteroids- Prednisone or Prednisolone.  Sorry for any confusion.
> I have a cat, Jack, with heart disease who also has IBD so he cannot have steroids.
> I believe there is one, which is called Budesonide?  that might act more locally in the intestines so 
> it could be a bit safer if a cat has heart disease.  
>  
> My FeLV positive cat Leo, who became sick quickly back in 2014, was diagnosed with both Lymphoma and 
> leukemia, his WBC count was through the roof, in the 150,000?s??  I would have to go back and look at the notes.
> He was @ 5 years old. I trapped him in a neighbor?s yard to TNR, but 
> he tested positive so I kept him. Anyway, after the vet visit, for mainly inappetence, he went downhill
> very quickly and I thought the stress of the visit, x-rays, fluids, and pred. might have sent him into heart failure too.
> That was a guess on my part.  He was an adult feral that I tamed once he tested positive for FeLV, and he was so afraid 
> out of his environment that I never took him to get an echo.  I only suspected it as a possibility because he 
> had a murmur when he was neutered, though not later, and would pant when playing too much with feather toy.
> Something I will never know and it has always eaten away at me.
>  
> I am not in this group much anymore, but read the messages, and just wanted to mention to Katy, just in case.
> Hopefully not that.
>  
> Shelley 
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 18, 2018, at 4:59 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com <mailto:aoakley at oakleylegal.com>> wrote:
>  
> Sorry Shelley ? my email below should have read IT ISN?T prednisolone. . . 
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of Amani Oakley
> Sent: October 18, 2018 4:57 PM
> To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hi Shelley. Are you speaking about anabolic steroids or corticosteroids? And what type in particular? I think that there may be a particular steroid which has been linked with heart issues sometimes but it is prednisolone (which is a corticosteroid) and it isn?t Winstrol (which is an anabolic steroid).
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of Shelley Theye
> Sent: October 18, 2018 4:29 PM
> To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hi Katy,
>  
> So sorry that Batman is going through this!
>  
> Did they look at Batman?s heart while he was at the vet hospital?  Specifically did they do an echocardiogram?  I am guessing that they had no reason to with his initial symptoms so they probably didn?t?
>  
> Maybe he has heart disease that the steroids have exacerbated... Young cats can have it and not have any outward symptoms.  Steroids are contraindicated with heart problems.  I think there is one type that can be used, but it is not usually given first.  
>  
> Just throwing this out there just in case.  Steroids could hurt his heart if he has undiagnosed heart problem and maybe cause him to act like.
> Not to scare you, just to get him treated for it if it is that.
>  
> Shelley   
>  
>  
>  
> 
> On Oct 18, 2018, at 3:27 PM, Katy Brown <ktbrown15 at gmail.com <mailto:ktbrown15 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  
> Amani,
> That is very insightful. I?m not convinced he has lymphoma because his decline was so rapid. Within hours he went from walking to having completely rigid legs. And today he is starting to decline. I?m wondering if there is something else I can give him besides the 5 mg of Prednisolone and the Clindamycin.
> The vet said he he keeps declining we could do another form of Chemo which is very aggressive and has other side affects and would be a Hail Mary to buy him another few days? 
> I?m just not convinced he has cancer. Even though he is FeLV positive he is young to develop a cancer? 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Oct 18, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Amani Oakley <aoakley at oakleylegal.com <mailto:aoakley at oakleylegalcom>> wrote:
> 
> I actually had a few similar experiences. Once it involved two very young kittens. Once it involved a cat about a year old. In my opinion, the two different experiences had two different causative agents, and at the risk of boring you silly, I will try to explain both. Neither, by the way, was well understood by the vets, leading me again to the inevitable conclusion that cat health is very poorly studied (no where near dog health) and because cats respond different to disease and medication, (whereas dogs respond very much like people), then science and medicine is way behind in understanding cats.
>  
> With respect to the kittens, it was my view that they actually had (and one of them still has) Lyme disease. The area I picked them up was one very well-known to be endemic for Lyme disease. They had an alternating lameness ? once picking up one paw which seemed very swollen and sore ? and then next day, picking up the other paw. I looked this up and saw that this alternating lameness was described in dogs with Lyme disease. However, my vet believed that it might be calici virus. I didn?t agree with her, but let her treat for calici virus (including vaccination). The acute phase of the response seemed to be limited in time, and both kittens seemed to get better on their own. However, their brother lapsed into a coma ? was literally unresponsive for hours while I sat up with him. I didn?t know what to do, and my view was that either there was inflammation of the meninges (sac surrounding the brain) or an inflammation of the brain itself, causing increased intracranial pressure which might also result in loss of consciousness. I superdosed him with transdermal prednisone, took him to bed with me and kept checking him for hours. Then, suddenly, at about 4 in the morning, he just bounded awake, and began playing and galavanting all over the bed. Meanwhile, though, one of his two sisters has never been the same. She lost HUGE amounts of weight, and even now, as a 2+ year old cat, she weighs less than many kittens and she is all bones. I have been treating her with a combination of Winstrol, Doxycycline, high prednisone doses and magnesium (her muscles don?t work right ? like they are constantly spastic, and she walks in a funny tip toe way, and has poor coordination jumping on things and going up stairs, etc.) Anyhow, she is starting to get better, starting to put on weight and starting to walk better. I am convinced this was and is Lyme disease, though scientists and vets say that cats don?t get it. I don?t know how they know this, because they DO NOT TEST cats for it.
>  
> Story number two involves a kitten I got who was described as a ?wobbly? kitten and it was assumed that his mom had suffered a viral infection when he was in utero, which can result in this type of neurological damage (and it can be much worse). However, when he was very little, he suddenly and without warning, decided to squat and pee right in the middle of our bed, and he had never done this before. He was looking straight at me and I felt that he didn?t know why he was doing what he was doing. Not too long after (a few weeks or maybe a month), he started showing some very alarming neurological symptoms, including a loss of muscle control in the back end. His rectum seemed not tight but loose and stool just ?fell out? rather than being pushed out. His back legs in particular also became very very weak, and he developed a ?tripod stance? ? both back legs together ? his back end would sway and he would fall down. My knowledge with humans is that this occurs when there is damage to nerves in the spinal column, or pressure on them from a herniated disc, or something like that (cauda equina syndrome). I took him to the emergency clinic, but I had already started him on Winstrol and Prednisolone, assuming that the Prednisolone would help with reduction of swelling in the spinal canal and thus take pressure off the affected nerves, and the Winstrol might help in healing whatever injury there was in the spinal column. By the time they could do an MRI on him, he was regaining all function and his gait had become normal. The MRI was inconclusive, with the vets thinking that they could possible see the remains of a lesion, right in the area where one would expect it to be to affect rectal control and muscle function of the back legs, but the lesion appeared to be healed over so they couldn?t tell if that was the cause or if the lesion was old or new.  
>  
> It sounds to me like the prednisone you used in your case, has a similar effect. There was swelling somewhere, likely in the spinal column as you surmise, and the prednisone helped bring down the swelling.
>  
> Amani
>  
> From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org <mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org>> On Behalf Of katy brown
> Sent: October 18, 2018 12:21 PM
> To: Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org <mailto:Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org>
> Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
>  
> Hello,
> I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still tested positive while his brother was negative.
>  
> Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great I was away on vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital, which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned, and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>  
> Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
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>  
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>  
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From thyme2sail at gmail.com  Mon Oct 22 14:44:02 2018
From: thyme2sail at gmail.com (Pam Doore)
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2018 15:44:02 -0400
Subject: [Felvtalk] Batman Felv Positive Having Neurological issues.
In-Reply-To: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABcNDLUkVp0PFYTU2eE0iKoYmb1eopV7kqpPmn2=yLU15cdLCg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+-nMsuh6_qAr7NtCObsok5cJDh+yYdvJQ90cjwjqA03RoHx6g@mail.gmail.com>

Kelly did they check him for a blood clot. There is a specific kind that
happens middle of the back. I believe it is called a Saddleback due to the
location and they come on very suddenly.

I have had a neurological issue with one of my babies but it affects her
eyes. her pupils are not the same size and when they did her neurological
exam at the local that's office her reaction time on her right side was
slower than on her left side and that right pupil is alays razer thin no
matter what the light is.

She also had an episode this summer when it was super hot that she had a
head tilt drooling and stumbling by the time I got her to the vet she had
been in a cold car long enough to fully recover.

On Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:24 PM katy brown <ktbrown15 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
> I have an amazing cat named Batman who a year ago as a kitten tested
> positive for FelV. His brother also texted positive, after 2 other tests
> later on after the antibodies from the mother had cleared, Batman still
> tested positive while his brother was negative.
>
> Fast forward a year and both of them were doing great. I was away on
> vacation and left them with a full time cat sitter, who notice about a week
> ago that Batman was not going up stairs as much, but we figured this could
> be to him just adjusting to a new person in his home. When I arrived back
> home I immediately noticed he was not moving well and as the day progressed
> he was losing more mobility in his front paws. I took him to the emergency
> room where they thought he had experienced a trauma, and discharged him
> with 2 types of pain meds. The pain meds were a disaster, and he lost
> further mobility. From there we took him to Pennsylvania Vet. Hospital,
> which is supposed to be one of the best in the country, they realized he
> was having neurological issues, did a bunch of testing, his vitals and
> blood work were all good. An x-ray revealed no masses in his chest or
> spine. At this point they felt it was a cancer in his column, most likely
> lymphoma. The Vet thought that he was quite young even given his FeLV
> positive status to have lymphoma, but given how fast he was becoming
> completely paralyzed, there were not many other diagnosis that fit the
> bill. The vet started him on Prednisolone and Clindamycin, and within hours
> he regained movement in his legs and was walking again. Yesterday he was
> jumping and scratching on his post again, and eating and drinking. Last
> night his behavior changed and he kept trying to hide which is very unlike
> him, however I thought that maybe he was just tired, he had gone from
> completely paralyzed to jumping in 3 days. But this morning it was apparent
> that he was not ok, he did eat after much encouragement, but has moved very
> very little. I have called the Vet and am waiting to hear back but I'm not
> optimistic. Has anyone had this experience? I don't want to put him down if
> there is a chance he could come back but he is hardly moving and seems like
> him trying to hide was him trying to find a place to pass away
> quietly. Batman is so young and he is the sweetest cat I have ever owned,
> and his brother can't get along with out him.  I will try anything to keep
> him alive but I want him to have a good quality life. Any suggestions would
> be appreciated.
>
> Also I apologize if I did not use this forum correctly. I wasn't sure if I
> emailed the group or how it works so I hope this does work.
> _______________________________________________
> Felvtalk mailing list
> Felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
>
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