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
