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Hello dear cat people,
I need some advice from experts.
My 3,5 y.o. male cat is sick for about 1-1,5 years. I will explain everything below. I know it's not possible to diagnose without seeing a cat, but this is not what I'm looking for. After reading my cat's story, can someone have an idea about what did we miss? What diseases we should suspect and check?
(Location: Istanbul, Turkey)
Everything started in March2020 with licking concrete. Our veterinarian suspected lack of minerals and gave him a vitamin/mineral support malt. It helped for few months. Then my cat showed; weight loss, apetite loss, yellow skin, lethargy symptoms. After the tests (which is in June2020) he was diagnosed with jaundice and got treatment. He was also corona positive. Things went a bit well in the following 6-7 months. He was lethargic from time to time, but immun-supportive meds (called Zylexis) helped us during that period.
At the end of Dec20, he got very sick again. Pale skin, weight loss, lethargy and very severe anemia, so he got blood transfusion at new year's eve.
Then I thought anemia is not a disease, it's a symptom of some diseases indeed. So I insisted our veterinarian to search for the real disease.
Felv, Fiv and geartworms are eliminated due to quick tests (done twice).
No Fip symptoms even though being corona positive (no fluid accumulation, no neuroligical symptoms etc)
Organs are doing well, no problem with them due to ultrasound (including heart)
Haemobartonalle was positive so he got doxisicline treatment for 22 days (before diagnosing IMHA). And doxisicline treatment did not help improving the blood levels (erythrocyte, hematocrit and hemoglobin levels). Indeed, these got worse after the doxisiclin treatment. So, our veterinarian thought it was not haemobartonella.
Also, auto-agglutination has been detected in blood samples (by external laboratory).
All these took almost 2 months, after the blood transfusion and finally our veterinarian's final diagnose was IMHA and we started prednisolone treatment with a dosage of weight*2.
His blood levels increased significantly and we started to decrease the prednisolone. My cat was fine, blood tests were fine. When we stopped prednisolone treatment, his blood levels dropped again. Significantly. And only in 5 days.
So we started prednisolone again. But this time, he was not responsive to the treatment at all. He also got chlorambusil in addition to prednisolone (as a second immunosupresive agent). And this decreased the WBC levels (which was normal before) and did not help red blood cells at all.
At the moment, my cat is taking the dosage of weight*4 prednisolone, his physical condition got worse in the last feew weeks (lost weight, stopped eating). His hematocrite level is 12,5 and erythrocyte level is 2,8.
We dont know why he is not responsive to the treatment, why prednisolone doesn't work.
Our veterinarian started doxisiclin treatment again (this time; in addition to prednisolone), because he thinks the haemobartonella attacked due to low immunity. But I think, he thinks like this just because all other possibilities are eliminated.
So, thank you for reading this all.
Can someone tell me what else should we check? Did we miss anything?
I need some advice from experts.
My 3,5 y.o. male cat is sick for about 1-1,5 years. I will explain everything below. I know it's not possible to diagnose without seeing a cat, but this is not what I'm looking for. After reading my cat's story, can someone have an idea about what did we miss? What diseases we should suspect and check?
(Location: Istanbul, Turkey)
Everything started in March2020 with licking concrete. Our veterinarian suspected lack of minerals and gave him a vitamin/mineral support malt. It helped for few months. Then my cat showed; weight loss, apetite loss, yellow skin, lethargy symptoms. After the tests (which is in June2020) he was diagnosed with jaundice and got treatment. He was also corona positive. Things went a bit well in the following 6-7 months. He was lethargic from time to time, but immun-supportive meds (called Zylexis) helped us during that period.
At the end of Dec20, he got very sick again. Pale skin, weight loss, lethargy and very severe anemia, so he got blood transfusion at new year's eve.
Then I thought anemia is not a disease, it's a symptom of some diseases indeed. So I insisted our veterinarian to search for the real disease.
Felv, Fiv and geartworms are eliminated due to quick tests (done twice).
No Fip symptoms even though being corona positive (no fluid accumulation, no neuroligical symptoms etc)
Organs are doing well, no problem with them due to ultrasound (including heart)
Haemobartonalle was positive so he got doxisicline treatment for 22 days (before diagnosing IMHA). And doxisicline treatment did not help improving the blood levels (erythrocyte, hematocrit and hemoglobin levels). Indeed, these got worse after the doxisiclin treatment. So, our veterinarian thought it was not haemobartonella.
Also, auto-agglutination has been detected in blood samples (by external laboratory).
All these took almost 2 months, after the blood transfusion and finally our veterinarian's final diagnose was IMHA and we started prednisolone treatment with a dosage of weight*2.
His blood levels increased significantly and we started to decrease the prednisolone. My cat was fine, blood tests were fine. When we stopped prednisolone treatment, his blood levels dropped again. Significantly. And only in 5 days.
So we started prednisolone again. But this time, he was not responsive to the treatment at all. He also got chlorambusil in addition to prednisolone (as a second immunosupresive agent). And this decreased the WBC levels (which was normal before) and did not help red blood cells at all.
At the moment, my cat is taking the dosage of weight*4 prednisolone, his physical condition got worse in the last feew weeks (lost weight, stopped eating). His hematocrite level is 12,5 and erythrocyte level is 2,8.
We dont know why he is not responsive to the treatment, why prednisolone doesn't work.
Our veterinarian started doxisiclin treatment again (this time; in addition to prednisolone), because he thinks the haemobartonella attacked due to low immunity. But I think, he thinks like this just because all other possibilities are eliminated.
So, thank you for reading this all.
Can someone tell me what else should we check? Did we miss anything?
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