- Joined
- Jan 5, 2020
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Hi all,
Kila (4 year old calico) had been exhibiting some symptoms of dental pain recently (licking her lips, yawning a lot, drooling, tooth grinding) so we took her to the vet to get her mouth checked out. They found two "bad" teeth, which she had surgery to remove this past week and a full cleaning. She's a few days recovered from surgery now and still doing well, though some of her original symptoms persist.
Before her surgery she had bloodwork done, and at her follow up visit today I asked the vet to go over the results with us. He found a few abnormalities:
The vet was weirdly both concerned and not concerned... he said it's definitely something we should be keeping an eye on, and that we should do a follow up in 2-3 months to check and see how things progress. He said these elevations indicated "inflammation" and could be caused by any number of things. He also said something to the effect of, statistically, this is probably nothing to be too concerned about, and not to freak out about it. But of course I'm freaking out about it anyway, especially with that globulin level. I really am stressing that this could be the start of FIP, cancer, etc.
Kila's had a lot of weird but mostly benign symptoms since we got her, which I'm wondering if that is related to what we're seeing in the bloodwork here. She just doesn't seem to be operating at 100% ever... she's just a little off all the time. But as many times as we take her in, the vet has continued to stress that as long as she's eating, going to the bathroom, and playing (which she is), she should be fine. She never has a fever or anything immediately concerning.
She dealt with a rough respiratory infection, very possibly herpes, and then was diagnosed with bronchitis when we first got her, which is being treated with daily antihistamines. Maybe the herpes or the bronchitis is contributing to the inflammation? I've been nervous that the antihistamines aren't doing enough for her, since her breathing rate tends to be a little elevated throughout the day (while awake -- she's always around at 20 bpm while sleeping) and she tends to get fatigued easily during exercise, even though her cough has been effectively treated.
She's also had tapeworms twice in the few months we've had her... her stomach in general is very delicate and she gets diarrhea easily if we mess with her food at all. She's vomited two times total, for no real discernible reason, both in the middle of the night hours after she'd eaten.
I know there's not much to do at this point but wait and recheck her in a few months and monitor her symptoms. But if anyone has any insights, or has had a cat with similar bloodwork results in the past, please let me know what you think. Thanks so much. <3
Kila (4 year old calico) had been exhibiting some symptoms of dental pain recently (licking her lips, yawning a lot, drooling, tooth grinding) so we took her to the vet to get her mouth checked out. They found two "bad" teeth, which she had surgery to remove this past week and a full cleaning. She's a few days recovered from surgery now and still doing well, though some of her original symptoms persist.
Before her surgery she had bloodwork done, and at her follow up visit today I asked the vet to go over the results with us. He found a few abnormalities:
- High HCT (52.7%, reference is 30.3 - 52.3)
- High HGB (16.5 g/dL, reference is 9.8 - 16.2)
- High lympocytes (7.93 K/uL, reference is 0.92 - 6.88)
- High total protein (9.0 g/dL, reference is 5.7 - 8.9)
- High globulin (5.3 g/dL, reference is 2.8 - 5.1)
The vet was weirdly both concerned and not concerned... he said it's definitely something we should be keeping an eye on, and that we should do a follow up in 2-3 months to check and see how things progress. He said these elevations indicated "inflammation" and could be caused by any number of things. He also said something to the effect of, statistically, this is probably nothing to be too concerned about, and not to freak out about it. But of course I'm freaking out about it anyway, especially with that globulin level. I really am stressing that this could be the start of FIP, cancer, etc.
Kila's had a lot of weird but mostly benign symptoms since we got her, which I'm wondering if that is related to what we're seeing in the bloodwork here. She just doesn't seem to be operating at 100% ever... she's just a little off all the time. But as many times as we take her in, the vet has continued to stress that as long as she's eating, going to the bathroom, and playing (which she is), she should be fine. She never has a fever or anything immediately concerning.
She dealt with a rough respiratory infection, very possibly herpes, and then was diagnosed with bronchitis when we first got her, which is being treated with daily antihistamines. Maybe the herpes or the bronchitis is contributing to the inflammation? I've been nervous that the antihistamines aren't doing enough for her, since her breathing rate tends to be a little elevated throughout the day (while awake -- she's always around at 20 bpm while sleeping) and she tends to get fatigued easily during exercise, even though her cough has been effectively treated.
She's also had tapeworms twice in the few months we've had her... her stomach in general is very delicate and she gets diarrhea easily if we mess with her food at all. She's vomited two times total, for no real discernible reason, both in the middle of the night hours after she'd eaten.
I know there's not much to do at this point but wait and recheck her in a few months and monitor her symptoms. But if anyone has any insights, or has had a cat with similar bloodwork results in the past, please let me know what you think. Thanks so much. <3
I wish there was a better way of knowing.
