- Joined
- Dec 7, 2012
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A few days ago my cat who just had her 4th birthday had a sudden seizure. When I first saw her I thought she had broken a limb or her back and was trying to get back up, it was terrifying. I ran to help, and probe various bones but couldn't find anything wrong, and then a few seconds later it was like nothing had happened. Actually, she was able to stand up and walk away with a degree of uncertainty in her step, but not like she was experiencing any pain at all.
We took her to the vet, and had some traditional bloodwork done and found that her red blood cell count was abnormally high. This was a bit of a surprise considering only 6 months ago blood work was done due to a kidney condition she had developed which had left her rather dehydrated and needing subcutaneous fluids. Now though, she seems totally fine, I mean completely normal. Like her normal self, however the vet is telling me that she will be needing a phlebotomy every month in order to maintain her blood count at a level that her brain will be able to tolerate.
They are talking about pulling something like 100ml of blood every month (and that's the "conservative" amount) or administering some oxyurea every day for the rest of her life. The treatment that they are looking at will wind up costing basically 400 dollars a month due to the time that the procedure will take. Does this make any sense to anyone? When we had taken her to the doctor the last time, she was definitely very sick, and got better very quickly following antibiotics, but could a kidney infection of that severity prompt this kind of condition 6 months later? We already had an x-ray done to check for kidney abnormalities, and an ultrasound done afterwards just to be sure, but nothing showed up. Her lungs appeared completely normal so she isn't suffering from a lack of oxygen uptake from what they can tell... and as far as I can ascertain they don't understand anything about the condition and have to refer to specialists way out in bumble to figure out treatment plans... ARGHHHHH someone with half a veterinary brain help me out, or anyone that has ever dealt with this before. Basically the condition means that her bone marrow is producing more red blood cells by almost double what she needs which is leading to a difficulty in blood flow through smaller capillaries and could potentially lead to a stroke. Anyone have any ideas please?
We are hoping that there has to be some other explanation for the increased RBC count, would a marrow test indicate a problem? Or would it also test positive if she was producing more blood due to allergies or low oxygen? She likes sleeping under blankets... would that lead to low oxygen?
We took her to the vet, and had some traditional bloodwork done and found that her red blood cell count was abnormally high. This was a bit of a surprise considering only 6 months ago blood work was done due to a kidney condition she had developed which had left her rather dehydrated and needing subcutaneous fluids. Now though, she seems totally fine, I mean completely normal. Like her normal self, however the vet is telling me that she will be needing a phlebotomy every month in order to maintain her blood count at a level that her brain will be able to tolerate.
They are talking about pulling something like 100ml of blood every month (and that's the "conservative" amount) or administering some oxyurea every day for the rest of her life. The treatment that they are looking at will wind up costing basically 400 dollars a month due to the time that the procedure will take. Does this make any sense to anyone? When we had taken her to the doctor the last time, she was definitely very sick, and got better very quickly following antibiotics, but could a kidney infection of that severity prompt this kind of condition 6 months later? We already had an x-ray done to check for kidney abnormalities, and an ultrasound done afterwards just to be sure, but nothing showed up. Her lungs appeared completely normal so she isn't suffering from a lack of oxygen uptake from what they can tell... and as far as I can ascertain they don't understand anything about the condition and have to refer to specialists way out in bumble to figure out treatment plans... ARGHHHHH someone with half a veterinary brain help me out, or anyone that has ever dealt with this before. Basically the condition means that her bone marrow is producing more red blood cells by almost double what she needs which is leading to a difficulty in blood flow through smaller capillaries and could potentially lead to a stroke. Anyone have any ideas please?
We are hoping that there has to be some other explanation for the increased RBC count, would a marrow test indicate a problem? Or would it also test positive if she was producing more blood due to allergies or low oxygen? She likes sleeping under blankets... would that lead to low oxygen?