Feline Polycythemia Vera

[adelheid]

Thanks Sherry.My only worry is that Rupert only eats dry food and sometimes licks the fat of Polish sausage, maybe I will have to roll the chemo tablet in thefat and then put it amongst his food.You have given me lots of hope, they are too young to die at that age they are.I will keep you updated.Love,Heidi and Rupert

 

[sherryla]

Do anything you need to in order to have Rupert take his meds. Depending on the dose your vet recommends, you may only have to administer every other day or 3x a wk.

Good luck! Keep me posted.

Sherry

 

[gomezopotamia]

Thanks Sherry. My only worry is that Rupert only eats dry food and sometimes licks the fat of Polish sausage, maybe I will have to roll the chemo tablet in the fat and then put it amongst his food. You have given me lots of hope, they are too young to die at that age they are. I will keep you updated. Love, Heidi and Rupert

Hi Heidi! Have you decided to try the hydroxyurea? Keep us all posted on how well Rupert is doing.

 

[gomezopotamia]

My Murphy is doing great on the Hydroxyurea 200MG tabs. He has his medication every other day and his numbers are @ 46 (consistent readings for the past year!!)  :catguy:





He has not had blood draws since 2009; the medicine is more effective and certainly less stressful. He will be 12 years old in March and is happy and active.



 



Glad to hear Rupert is doing well! Again, the cost for a two-month supply of Hydroxyurea (compounded by a local pharmacist) is $75.00. I know there has been much debate about the medication, but it has been the best thing for my Murphy and has delivered only the best results possible!!!



 



Keep in touch and god bless you and Rupert!



Sherryla



 

Sherryla, thanks for posting. My cat Gomez is on a silmilar dose. Except we do 100mg everyday. He's been on this since June and has kept his count in the mid 40s as well.

I have this constant fear that the meds will stop working, but your kitty has been on them successfully for several years. You have no idea how reassuring it is to read that.

 

[adelheid]

Hi,

not yet.  The vet thinks we should do the blood letting for another while.  It last about 4/5 weeks until he needs another one.  He seems to take it quite well, no tiredness afterwards.

Rupert will have to take the chemo tablets sooner or later.

The vet seems to think that chemo tablets are not that great but all your cats who are on them are tolerating them really well.

All the best,

Heidi and Rupert.

 

[adelheid]

Hi Kelly,

I just saw your message, how is your cat doing now?

I live in the UK as well and thought that our cat's treatment was quite expensive.

We pay £30 for a blood test and £227 for a blood letting.

Your vet is expensive, could you maybe phone around, maybe you will find a cheaper one?

Hope your cat is still doing well.

Regards,

Heidi

 

[gomezopotamia]

Heidi,

What is it that your vet dislikes about the Hydroxyurea? Is it side-effects? Effectiveness?

Either way, it's good that Rupert handles the blood-lettings so well. He's awesome

 

[sherryla]

Glad to hear Gomez is thriving on the Hydroxyurea. Just wanted to put your mind at ease ---- my Murphy has been taking his meds for over 7 years now, and it continues to be successful!!!

Hang in there and stay positive!!!

Sherry

 

[gomezopotamia]

7 years is fantastic! I really am glad to hear that. I'm really pleased with the hydroxyurea. Above the high blood count, Gomez had really odd behaviors even when his blood count was normal which seems to have resolved with the bone marrow suppression. Totally weird, but I can't complain.

Honestly the only side effects I've noticed is that his fur is definitely a bit thinner. He's certainly not bald though! He is a pure-bred Himalayan though, so it might be that I'm just so used to him being absurdly fluffy. Fortunately he has had no nausea or any other negative side effects.

 

[sherryla]

So glad to hear Gomez is doing well! My Murphy is living proof that Polycythemia Vera can be controlled with proper care and meds!

 

[natattaack]

Hi everyone!

Leslie- how is Motley doing?

Sherry- your posts about Murphy give me a lot of hope. Thank you!! So glad he is doing well on the meds for so long.

My Valo was diagnosed with polycythemia vera almost a year ago. He has phlebotomies every 3 months or so, and they had been working great.. Until last week. He went in with a PCV of 77 and after the phlebotomy, was only down to 76. After 2 more phlebotomies with similar results, we decided the best course of action is to do daily phlebotomies until his PCV is under 60 and then start the hydroxyurea. Today he went in for (what I hope is!) his final phlebotomy. His PCV went from 70 to 58. I am starting him on 100mg of hydroxyurea tomorrow and hoping for good results.

I've done a lot of research on this drug, so it scares me to start him on it, but at this point we are out of options. So I wanted some feedback from people who have actual experience with this drug. What side effects have you noticed with your kitties?

-Natalie

 

[sherryla]

Murphy has been on 200 MG of Hydroxyurea, every other day, for 7 years and he has ha no adverse effects from the medication. He is happy, "healthy", and his numbers are stable, ranging from 46-50!!!

Hang in there and good luck!!  I assure you that, at least in my Murphy's case, the medication has been a huge success!!! 

Sherry

 

[lunarleslie]

Hi Natalie,

Sorry for the delayed response, I wish I got notifications in my email when someone posts a new thread!

Motley has been on hydroxy for a year and a half now and is doing excellent! As another user commented, his fur has thinned out a bit, but he is definitely not bald either

His PCV has remained right around 43% and his other tests for kidney/liver function have all been normal. He actually goes in Saturday for a full senior panel.

I was really apprehensive to put him on hydroxy too. Chemo meds sound so scary and you hear about all of the horrible side effects in humans. BUT he has tolerated it really well. I give him liquid form (chicken flavored) and the little sweetie takes it like a champ, doesn't even mind at all!

Although it is a limited sample it is so great to hear that all who have posted on this thread and used the meds have had positive experiences. When Mots was initially diagnosed I thought it would be a death sentence. SO incredibly grateful that was not the case.

Natalie, I will be sending love and positive, healing thoughts Valo's way. Will you please keep us posted on how he does on the meds?

All the best,

Motley and his faithful servant, Leslie

 

[kshaley]

Hello,

I am so happy to have found this thread. It looks like it has been a while since anyone has posted updates about how your cats are doing living with polycythemia vera.

We have a cat, Nibbles who was diagnosed in September of 2014 with polycythemia vera. We have been having phlebotomies performed routinely and have been administering a daily dose of Phenobarbitol to keep the seizures at bay. Recently we have had to increase the dosage of medicine because Nibbles had another seizure.

We are are curious to hear updates regarding everyone's treatment, specifically with Hydroxyurea. At first we were not willing to even consider this medicine because of potential side effects, but after reading through this thread, we are rethinking this.

If anyone has any updates we'd love to hear them, good or bad.

Thank you!

Kevin

 

[lunarleslie]

Hi Kevin,

My kitty Motley has been on Hydroxyurea for over a year and a half and so far is doing great! Although the drug sounds scary, it seems to work for a lot of kitties with true polycythemia (not due to a tumor, heart problem, etc). And if it works, it is much less traumatic than frequent phlebotomies.

Keep us posted on Nibbles, please!

Best of luck to you both,

Leslie

 

[kshaley]

Hi Leslie,

Thank you for your reply. We had our cat, Nibbles on Phenobarbitol (an anti seizure medicine) because she was seizuring frequently. We were taking her to the vet for a PCV count quite frequently which resulted in phlebotomies at a frequency more than we wanted her to go through. So, after reading through this thread several times we met with a specialist last week and started her on Hydroxyurea. We are hoping once her PCV is in the 55% range we can start to ween her off of the Phenobarb and she will only remain on the Hydroxy.

I must say, she is doing really well already. Shes acting more like she was before she started having seizures back in September of last year and it has only been 5 days. If things continue to move in the direction they are going, she as well as my wife and I are going to be very, very happy.

The Hydroxy does sound scary but the benefits of using the drug far outweigh the frequent trips to the vet as you mentioned.

So thankful that we found this forum, particularly this post! We wish we would have started her on the Hydroxy sooner.

Kevin

 

[gomezopotamia]

I'm just posting an update for my cat Gomez's journey with Polycythemia Vera and Hydroxyurea. It's been about a year since we started in the medication and he continues to be fantastic! He's super active (much to his sister's dismay!), he's happy, and he keeps a PCV in the 40s. He also has a pre existing kidney problem and the hyroxyurea has not worsened it. Though that is something we will need to monitor.

 

[kshaley]

Wanted to update my cats status.

The hydroxyurea was not keeping the PCV count down so we took her off it this week. Also, the phenobarbital stopped keeping the seizures at bay so we switched her to keppra, which worked for a couple of months but she started to have seizures on 9/4/2015 again. We upped the dose of keppra from 3 times a day to 4 times a day and it wasn't really keeping the seizures under control. We decided to take Nibbles to a holistic vet who specializes in Chinese Medicine.  On 9/10/2015 9still having multiple seizures a day) we started feeding Nibbles a Chinese Herbal formula that the holistic vet prescribed to us and within an hour of feeding the cat the herb, she was pretty much normal. No more seizures and she has been seizure free since then. She is more playful and loving than ever.

We also received a second Chinese Herbal formula that we hope will help with the high red blood cell count which we started her on today.

We have an appointment with our vet on 9/22 which will include a PCV test to see where her count is at.

We are hoping to take her off the keppra where it has seemed to fail after a couple of months and rely solely on the Chinese herbs as treatment. I must say we were floored by how quickly Nibbles improved after starting the Chinese Medicine therapy.  We only hope that this is finally the answer.

I will keep my post updated as we continue on this journey. It's been a difficult one for sure.

Kevin and Nibbles

 

[kshaw]

I can't believe I came across your post! Our family went through exactly the same situation just over a year ago. The only difference is our cat was not having seizures.
Our young cat, only 5 years old began to vommit blood. At first our vet thought it was An intestinal blockage. Afterwards we thought. That was the end of it..but a week later he began doing the same thing again and was not himself, sluggish, not very sociable. After some blood work we were told he had a Rare blood disorder, polycythemia. They said he would need a phlebotomy right away or he would die within hours because his blood was so thick it was not able to get oxygen to his brain. We went ahead with the procedure and then they said we could have an ultrasound the following Monday, ($350) to see if it was being caused by an underlying cause..but he would need to have a phlebotomy every month to keep his blood count under control and he would also be on medication for the rest of his life which would cost hundreds each month, not including the cost for the blood work each month. Then we found out that our bill for the first procedure and treatments was over $900.00 already. It broke our hearts but we had to let him go. The vet said without continuing the treatments, he would have only a few days and he would begin having seizures and lack of oxygen to his brain and organs. We could not afford the treatments for years to come and frankly....we really hated to put him through all of that every month.We chose to bring him home and spend a few days with him and then we brought him in to have him euthanized. I am so sorry you are going through this with your beloved pet. I hope and pray that you are luckier than we were and will find a treatment that is afordable and effective.

 

[sherryla]

Natalie,

Murphy continues to do well on the Hydroxyurea with no side effects. He has been taking the drug for nearly 8 years. How is Valo doing????