I recently decided to take my nearly 12 year old cat Krissy to the vet, just seemed time to get a blood check up to make sure all is well.
Her results showed an elevated wbc count, the eosinophils. They are twice the amt of the high end of the scale of normal range.
My vet said this particular cell reacts to fleas, parasites, allergies.
Well, fleas are out and she is and always has been treated every 3 weeks for all her years.
Had her poop checked, nothing there.
But as I have been researching allergies, I came to realize while she doesn't do major scratching or have sores or anything else, she does always have to be licking her paws, has very mild sound in her nose, and sometimes a bit of tear drainage, all are signs of an allergy of some type.
I think cat allergy, I think of food. I thought that was what I was going to have to start figuring out, eliminating, etc.
Well, I spoke with my vet yesterday to find out what was next, and was very discouraged and disappointed on his answer.
Now I chose this particular vet because he has a master's degree in nutrition, which I thought was ideal for Krissy who has always been overweight.
Then with this finding that she is allergic to something, I thought he could tell me something!
He said, I can put her on benadryl for a while to alleviate the symptoms, then stop and see if they return. She's always sleeping anyway so I'm not willing to go that route.
This is simply like putting a bandage on the surface but doesn't address the real cause.
I said wouldn't it be a food allergy? He said true food allergies are actually pretty rare.
Okay....so now what?! If her cells are that high, don't I need to do something to make her right?
Krissy is truly my baby, (avatar) and I can't feel okay about simply leaving it as is.
But what can I do?
I feel like long term elevation of wbc can't be a good thing, maybe it causes cancer or something with time......who knows?
Her results showed an elevated wbc count, the eosinophils. They are twice the amt of the high end of the scale of normal range.
My vet said this particular cell reacts to fleas, parasites, allergies.
Well, fleas are out and she is and always has been treated every 3 weeks for all her years.
Had her poop checked, nothing there.
But as I have been researching allergies, I came to realize while she doesn't do major scratching or have sores or anything else, she does always have to be licking her paws, has very mild sound in her nose, and sometimes a bit of tear drainage, all are signs of an allergy of some type.
I think cat allergy, I think of food. I thought that was what I was going to have to start figuring out, eliminating, etc.
Well, I spoke with my vet yesterday to find out what was next, and was very discouraged and disappointed on his answer.
Now I chose this particular vet because he has a master's degree in nutrition, which I thought was ideal for Krissy who has always been overweight.
Then with this finding that she is allergic to something, I thought he could tell me something!
He said, I can put her on benadryl for a while to alleviate the symptoms, then stop and see if they return. She's always sleeping anyway so I'm not willing to go that route.
This is simply like putting a bandage on the surface but doesn't address the real cause.
I said wouldn't it be a food allergy? He said true food allergies are actually pretty rare.
Okay....so now what?! If her cells are that high, don't I need to do something to make her right?
Krissy is truly my baby, (avatar) and I can't feel okay about simply leaving it as is.
But what can I do?
I feel like long term elevation of wbc can't be a good thing, maybe it causes cancer or something with time......who knows?