[Felvtalk] PLEASE HELP ASAP - VERY SICK FELV CAT

[Amani Oakley]

As others have mentioned in reply to your post, I have used a combination of Winstrol (Stanozolol), Doxycycline and Prednisone. The blood work seems to show that there is an affect on both the red cell lines and platelets. That suggests that this is a bone marrow depression, and in turn that suggests that this is likely the effect of FeLV. My experience has been that the Winstrol seems to turn back on or encourage the growth of new bone marrow cells, and is really great for increasing red cell indices (red cell counts, haematocrit, haemoglobin, reticulocyte count), and I saw it take effect pretty quickly. My cat's haematocrit was down to 10 after two separate rounds of blood transfusion.

By the way, I don't understand the explanation in your email, that you've been told that the blood transfusion wasn't effective because of too much IV fluids. That doesn't make a lot of sense. You are still infusing the same volume of red cells, whether that is diluted by the IV fluids or not. I agree that the lab results may show a dilution effect because of the IV fluids, but that just means that when the excess fluid is pee'd out, then the haematocrit result will go up. By the way, if there is truly a dilution effect, it will show on a number of lab results like sodium, potassium, urea and platelets.

What I had my cat on was:           Winstrol (stanozolol)                      1 mg, 2 times a day (though this can be dramatically increased if necessary)
                                             Doxycycline                                      50 mg daily (can be given once, or split to 25 mg, 2 times a day)
                                             Prednisone/Prednisolone              5 mg daily (can be given once, or split to 2.5 mg, 2 times a day)


Amani

From: Felvtalk <felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org> On Behalf Of Wendy
Sent: September 19, 2019 1:26 AM
To: felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
Subject: [Felvtalk] PLEASE HELP ASAP - VERY SICK FELV CAT
Importance: High

Hello, Our FELV positive neutered male cat approximately 1 and ½ years old has gotten very sick suddenly.  He is a house cat, and he was neutered in May of 2019.  Would you please let us know what we can do to help our much-loved cat?  A few days ago, he became lethargic and lost interest in eating.  We had his blood drawn yesterday and he had iv fluids yesterday, and today we were told he needed a blood transfusion (or two) and more iv fluids, and then a bone marrow test tomorrow.  We were told that the first blood transfusion today was not very effective because he got so many iv fluids at the same time, so now they are going to give him another transfusion.  As background, we rescued him as a stray from Barbados in October 2018 when he was about 6 months old, and he has been healthy, active, happy and gaining weight, despite being FELV positive.  Since October 2018, we cured him of giardia and bartonella henselae.  On 12/31/2018, he tested positive for the ELISA and IFA, although his blood work was in normal ranges at that time.  In 03/2019, we started giving him 1 t-cyte shot once per month, and we started giving him 1ml of interferon per days for 7 days on and then 7 days off, repeated.  We have continued the interferon and t-cyte in this manner ever since 03/2019.  Just yesterday, here are the results of his blood work that are not in normal range:
AST (SGOT) 106
Glucose 178
CPK 711
WBC 20.5
RBC 2.5
HGB 4.5
HCT 14
NRBC 9
Platelet Count 78
Neutrophils 1640
Lymphocytes 17630
Monocytes 1025
Basophils 205
Protein 2+
Reticulocyte 0.6 and 15000
Would you please let us know what we can do to help our cat?
Thank you, Wendy
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