Anyone familiar with Feline Leukemia?

[Ia_Cat_Lover]

I just found out yesterday my "porch" kitty has Feline Leukemia. She hasn't been eating well for a couple of months....lost lots of weight. I took her to the vets when this all started, and they did alot of tests, blood work, etc., but somehow didn't do the test for this. I took her in again yesterday because she just wasn't getting any better (duh) and they did the test which came back positive. She seems perfectly normal other than her lack of appetite. I guess what I'm getting at here, is, has anyone dealt with this before? How long do you think I have before she needs to be put down? I can't do it right now because she is so alert and seems not to be in any pain or anything.

[t_chelle16]

Unfotrunately, I do have experience with FeLV.

We adopted a kitten back in September. When she got spayed in January, she got an infection and we found out she had FeLV. She never beat the infection and died. We had our other cats tested and found out one of them (Tennessee) was also positive (but not showing any signs). My mom started reading everything she could and started her on a bunch of natural immune boosters. She got a combination of colostrum, vitamin C, and CoQ10. In 3 months, she went from a strong positive to a weak positive, but then she developed lung cancer (sadly, leukemis cats are 60 times more likely to get cancer) and died a few weeks ago.

My mom actually knows more about it all than I do so I'll try to get her to come here and post. But just so you know, FeLV isn't always a death sentence. There have been cats that lived for many, many years with FeLV.

Out of curiosity, did the vet say anything about her being anemic or having pale gums? Anemia is one of the main things that takes out FeLV cats. And do you know if it was a strong positive or a weak positive? There's a fairly high insidence of false positives. We adopted another cat (after the first one died) that had tested as a slight positive for FeLV when she was first picked up but never showed any symptoms. She gave birth to 3 healthy, negative kittens and went into foster care. After we adopted her, we had her tested again and she was negative so chances are the 1st test was a false positive (we also have a cat that tested as a slight positive for FIV but was negative when we had him re-tested). So definitely don't give up yet.

-Chelle

[Ia_Cat_Lover]

Thanks Chelle, I appreciate all the info. I am sure my "Oreo's" days are numbered, as she has lost about half her weight over the past 2 months. She sure acts normal tho...no pain that I can detect so far....I guess I will know when it's time....

[t_chelle16]

Hi, this is Chelle's mom. What I gave our felv cat is pure 48hour bovine colostrum (about 1 tablespoon a day), about 1/16 a teaspoon buffered vitiman C, and 30 mg of coQ10 a day. As for the vitiman C, cats produce their own, but felv cats seem to be lacking in it (too much can cause diarrhea). If the kitties gums are pale, try a drop of vitiman B complex a day. Try anything to get them to eat. If you give tuna, add a little taurine to it. Now to help cancer (which I found out about too late to help our kitty) mix ground flax seed to yogurt or cottage cheese and feed that to the kitty daily. I would also add fish oil to it. Hope this helps. You might try transfer factor, which is made from colostrum, it can be found on line.