Lionel's Story
A Positive FIV Experience
with Interferon

"Can You Feel The Love Tonight?"
From The Lion King
Music by Elton John, Lyrics by Tim Rice


I first saw Lionel in the summer of 1988. He was young and his soft charcoal gray coat was heightened by a fine set of whiskers and clear eyes of gold. He was so beautiful I thought (and honestly hoped) him to be a neighbors pet, but he wasn't. Within a few days, it became apparent he belonged to no one. He had been dumped.

We live across from a county park, and although the area is changing, it was and still is semi-rural and well suited to nighttime dumping of unwanted kittens, cats, puppies and dogs.

Well, to keep it short, 12 years have passed since he accepted our home as his and joined our other foundlings. One by one over those intervening years cats died, taking parts of us with them, and other thrown-away cats came, bringing new vibrant life and joy. Now at thirteen, Lionel is the the senior member of the pride.

The earliest sign of his illness appeared in the summer of '99. It doesn't come on full blown. It creeps up, and if you are not vigilant, some time can pass before you really see it. Pat noticed something wrong with Lionel quite early. He was listless and tired, and spent a good deal of time laying about with his front paws tucked under. Gingivitis which would ultimately cause real trouble came on gradually. His appetite waned and began to lose weight. As the gingivitis worsened, he started to salivate and sometimes long strings of viscous saliva dangled from his lips.

As I am with doctors for myself, I am with vets for our cats, reluctant to go, but there comes a time when their help is needed. and that time had come, so I took him to the vet who looked him over, poking, pulling, squeezing open his mouth, the whole works. Aside from gingivitis, he judged him to be alright. He was given a shot of antibiotic and 100mg tabs of amoxycillin to go. This treatment was to cure his mouth condition.

Things were a little better for a month or two, but then the symptoms returned. It was now September 99. Into the vet again. This time a glucose and BUN chemistries were ordered. The return report indicated all was well. Lionel was still on amoxycillin for his mouth. Another month passed and Lionel was not doing any better so back to the vet. This time his teeth were cleaned and a double-rooted tooth had to be extracted. Also a complete blood count was ordered along with a T-4 test. His blood counts were well below typical. He was anemic and his immune system was severely compromised. He was given prednisone 20mg as an anti-inflammatory to help his mouth condition. As I recall, I was told that prednisone would also help bone marrow produce red blood cells.

In November another CBC showed marked improvement. Though still below typical, the readings were about double what they were in September. Lionel was still on prednisone but at a lower level: 5mg.

But by early December Lionel was again showing signs of distress. The vet ordered additional blood workups, including an Autoimmune Profile. He also administered an ELISA test in his office. Lionel had FIV. The blood analyses supported the FIV diagnosis.

After that, Lionel went to the vet about every two weeks for blood tests and general evaluation. He continued to loose weight. His typical weight was 12 lbs. He was going down and eventually would sink to 9 lbs. We went through a series of methylprednisolone injections while continuing with the pills and antibiotics to try to control his mouth condition.

Once I learned he had FIV, I started visiting various cat help sites on the web searching for information and help. Where I first read Tally's message about the successful use of interferon, I don't remember, but she seemed so sure of the benefits to be gained from its use that I began to think of it seriously and visited the sites she recommended. I got in touch with her by email and her great enthusiasm for IFN and genuine concern for cats convinced me to give it a try.

I started with IFN in early April, 2000. Lionel was still at 9 lbs and his mouth was still sore and salivating. His fur was shaggy; his eyes dull and watery; he wasn't eating well; he was listless and slept a great deal of the time; he was a sick cat. My vet had not much experience with IFN and was mostly negative in outlook and that troubled me, but more than that he was reluctant to treat Lionel's mouth simultaneously with the use of IFN. So I sought out another vet, which turned out to be a good move. My new vet had some early experience with IFN and although he was behind the advanced state of the technology, he was more than willing to catch up. He treated Lionel's mouth using Baytril. Over time he switched to other antibiotic classes in both solid and liquid forms. Lionel responded to the treatment and also to the IFN of which we gave him 30 U/ml/day on a one week on three days off schedule. He started to gain weight and as of now, November 2000, he weighs 12.8 lbs. Somewhere about this time we changed his food, searching out a product that did not have meat-by-products as one of its ingredients.

Because he was doing so well, we had him tested for FIV on August 18, 2000. His test was negative. Lionel was in remission. Currently his whole outlook is much improved and if one didn't know he has FIV, it wouldn't be apparent that he was sick from looking at him, as it had been. I took a few photographs of him two of which may or may not be on this site (the pix are not that great). If they are you will see how great he looks. He does have up and down days and we are very well aware he is not cured. We had his teeth cleaned, and this will become routine because although his appetite remains good, he does have a tendency to develop gingivitis. We tried other remedies as we learned of them on FivCats and elsewhere on the web, but one by one we dropped them as being of no demonstrable value to Lionel.

There is absolutely no question in my mind that the combined antibiotic/interferon treatment is responsible for Lionel's remission. Without it he would have died. He is on a continuing course of antibiotics (liquid clindamycin), mainly for his mouth, but as important, for systemic protection too. There is concern over this continued use--resistence, fungus--but it is a risks vs benefits judgement, and right now we agree with the vet that it is the best way to go.

So here's my opinion: If you have an Fiv+ cat, start her/him on interferon right away. Don't wait for symptoms to appear, start now. There are no side affects so you can't do harm. You can only do good. You may spare your cat a lot of suffering.

One last comment: there is much talk about remission vs cyclical variations vs levels of detection vs hidden virus etc. What does all this matter anyway? How the cat feels is all that really matters.

If you have any questions or comments, please email me at pathalo@yahoo.com.

- John



Can You Feel The Love Tonight?

I can see what's happening
And they don't have a clue
They'll fall in love and here's the bottom line
Our trio's down to two.

The sweet caress of twilight
There's magic everywhere
And with all this romantic atmosphere
Disaster's in the air

Can you feel the love tonight
The peace the evening brings
The world for once in perfect harmony
With all its living things

So many things to tell her
But how to make her see
The truth about my past, impossible
She'd turn away from me

He's holding back, he's hiding
But what, I can't decide
Why won't he be the king I know he is?
The king I see inside?

Can you feel the love tonight?
The peace the evening brings
The world, for once, in perfect harmony
With all its living things

Can you feel the love tonight?
You needn't look too far
Stealing through the night's uncertainties
Love is where they are

And if he feels the love tonight
In the way I do
It's enough for this restless wanderer
Just to be with you

1