WOOHOO! 40 Hematocrit!

Took Lazlo and Tuxedo for annual exams. Tuxie, as many of you know, has been battling an autoimmune disease that's kind of like feline hemolytic anemia since... 2003/2004. Last July was his last shot of Depo - and his hematocrit was 25 at the time. He'd been so pink and so active we felt no need to take him in to get his hematocrit checked since then.

But it was time for annuals.... we always "bet" with the vet what his number is going to be. Gary bet 42, I bet 38, and the Doc bet 36.

IT WAS 40!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the vet called today with the results of all their blood work - and they both "couldn't look better." His heart and spleen are back to normal size - they have been for a couple of years - but it was still great to confirm they're staying that way.

We actually had to have the Senior Panel done. Can you believe our first kitty cats are now SENIORS? Yup - we have four cats turning 8 this year.

elayman, he did need a blood transfusion - many years ago. His hematocrit got down to 7, actually, and the vet gave him a day or two to live. This was after his first transfusion. We had several close calls those first two years. In fact, we actually moved so we'd only be 10 minutes from the vet, because for months he was going in every day for epogen shots (to help his bone marrow create red blood cells) and every other day he'd get nupogen too (to help him create white blood cells).

For those who aren't familiar with cat anemia (there are MANY causes), a hematocrit (or PCV - packed cell volume - the red blood cell count) of 30 - 40 is normal, 25 is borderline anemic, below 25 is anemic, and in the teens is not survivable for long. They never figured out what caused (causes) Tuxie's anemia, but it came with a low white cell count too (and a few various other levels of things that aren't consistent with a "proper" diagnosis of feline hemolytic anemia).

Cats have far more "complicated" blood than humans, and many cats can only receive one blood transfusion, because even with cat blood banks (which our vet has), finding an exact match is VERY difficult - and often the cat will reject a second transfusion (not always, but often). To give a transfusion, they don't just "pump" blood into a cat, it mixes with the cat's own blood and is then "infused." But often after the first transfusion, in that mixing process, the blood coagulates (the cat's defense system causes this to happen like it's some kind of foreign invader). He had his first transfusion when his hematocrit was 12. It bounced around between the low teens and mid-20s for a while, he did OK for a time, then treatment stopped working. That's when they switched steroids (which suppress the immune system - the point being to get his body to stop attacking his own blood as if it were a virus) to depmedrol - and with a few minor set backs here and there, it's basically been uphill from there.

Now every time they get a problem with a cat with anemia, if they can't find a treatment - they use the depo - and according to our vet, it has worked in every case. His wife is a vet tech at a different animal hospital, and he told us that just the week before we brought the boys in she was sharing her frustration at being unable to treat an extremely anemic cat. He said "try depo instead of prednisone" - and it worked. The pred worked for Tuxie for - I don't remember - a year or two. That's when his hematocrit fell off the charts again and our vet said he was "out of bullets." But he started calling all the feline blood experts around the country (most are in the South because so many tick borne diseases can cause anemia) - and that's how he saved our Tuxedo.