Chumley's (FIV+) Health Journal - Page 2

March 31, 2011 Thursday Had our first follow-up visit with the holistic vet.

CHUMLEY IS DOING "AMAZING!"

- Couldn't detect any heart murmur
- His fur looks FABULOUS. NO bald spots. Hair on abdomen is still growing in, but this can take a "really long time," and he's doing much better than she could have imagined in the three months.
- His rodent ulcer is GONE.
- His tongue is still a little thick (swollen), and still red around the edges (indicating issue with stomach and... shoot, I don't remember). BUT, the swelling is much less than when he was last there, and before his entire tongue was too red.
- Whatever pulses she listens to (not his heart pulse, his Qi pulses or whatever) are MUCH stronger than before.

She was absolutely BEAMING. She doesn't want to "fix what isn't broke," and since his progress is much faster than she anticipated, the only thing she wants us to do is up his Prosperous Farmer to 3x per day instead of 2x per day.

He still has the problem with gingivitis, obviously, as we haven't done anything to treat it yet. That was this visit. She recommended exactly what MA suggested: RAW (untreated) organic honey smeared on his gums. The way to do this is to take a baby toothbrush, get him used to it with baby food, then have a warm wet towel available when making the switch to honey.

The "only problem" with the honey is that it is not good for his "wet" condition, so I'm to keep an eye on his tongue, and she showed me what to look for.

We'll find out next month if this helped, because we scheduled a dental that will be done without anesthesia. !!!! It is a service they provide there, but not by them: a practitioner from California flies in every few months to provide the service. Here's a link if anyone's interested: http://houndstoothpetdental.com/

If the gingivitis hasn't improved by the date of his dental (May 10), then she wants to try antibiotics. She'd prefer doxy, but as it only comes in liquid, and I can't get liquid meds down him (he still doesn't handle very well), we'll consider the Convenia shot, though she doesn't have as much confidence in it for this. But we'll see.

I did notice he seems to have some dandruff. It's not bad, and I really couldn't find any to show her. But she said IF I want to try krill oil (I take krill oil pills, so I already have it here), she'd prefer that over salmon oil (better for his "wet" condition). She wants me to start small - though really, she thinks his coat looks GREAT, and if I do it, again, she wants me to keep an eye on his tongue.

We'll see where things stand in May, but one thing recommended for his Spleen Qi Deficiency is sub-Q fluids daily. Helps "cool" him down. He is really well hydrated (of course, I feed him only wet food and add water to each meal LOL), but this wouldn't be for hydration, but to increase his energy flow to help cool him down.

And he is 2-3 pounds overweight. She'd be happy with him at 12, but between 11-12 would be best. He weighs 14 pounds, 6 ounces.

So I have to start decreasing the amount I feed him. (He loves food!)

But... she was really pleased by the fact that his appetite is so good!

As to the FIV herbal therapy (which is one of the reasons we wanted to get him to an alternative vet to begin with), she wants me to send her all of the information. (I offered to print it out and send it rather than e-mail her the link). So I'll get that in the mail.

As to the round worm... the Profender was the right thing to do, and she thinks he should have at least one more treatment (which is what we were planning). We got the 2nd application on earlier this week.

The post-scrip here is that someone threw up a round worm earlier this month. We're pretty sure it was Chumley, but weren't sure. Fecal came up negative, but we decided to treat ALL of the cats anyway. The first round was March 8th. We're replacing all the litter and boxes this weekend (five days after 2nd application of Profender). 2nd treatment was earlier this week, and they'll all get treated again in another 3 weeks.

YAY CHUMLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

His vet visit made my day too. He's such a good boy!

Honey is antibacterial. It's also anti-inflammatory. In fact, it's one of the oldest medicines there is. But this has to be done with RAW, organic honey. Stuff you buy at the supermarket has been too processed to retain the healing properties needed to make it work.

Hopefully we won't have to use an antibiotic... but if she thinks it's OK to try and he needs one, we'll use this option first and go from there.

Doubt it, I couldn't find any at the vet's office.

We began introductions slowly, and he showed no aggression whatsoever to our gang. He was incredibly aggressive outside, but apparently that was food motivated only. We didn't remove any teeth, thankfully! Now if any need to come out, it would be for HIS medical benefit only.

Chum is actually pretty mellow at the vet. He complains for the first few minutes of the car ride, but once we're under way and settled in the room, he's pretty good. He had quite a few vet visits those first months, and he never got sick just from going to the vet. Lazlo and Shelly used to, and we had to battle a number of URIs those first two years. But it hasn't been a problem since. We discussed the dental options at length, and she obviously believes Chum is a good candidate for the dental without anesthesia. They have had these people practicing at their hospital for a number of years now, so it's not like (from her perspective) this is some experiment. She knows what they do, how they do it, and she knows the risks of anesthesia, and she knows Chumley. If I don't trust her opinion, I shouldn't be seeing her. Obviously if he's too stressed, they won't continue, and we'll just have to reschedule a "normal" dental.

She doesn't want him on raw with the FIV. She has VERY strong feelings that NO cats should be on ANY dry food at all for any reason, and she does prefer the (mostly) grain free diet. Cats, in the wild, do get grains from eating stomach contents of mice, but as re: Chumley, her concern (re: grains) is more about his allergies than anything else.

Yeah, it's not that round worm doesn't necessarily show in just one fecal sample, it's that it may not show in a fecal sample period. Basically to see the eggs, you pretty much have to run it immediately to the vet - and if they don't do the fecal float there... they collapse, and they can't be detected. That's why we almost never bother with fecal samples. We have ALL the ferals treated whenever they're in for anything (Revolution), and Chum was treated too, and with a follow-up. But we SAW the round worm, so we knew he had to be treated again. Did the fecal... I don't know why LOL.

With round worm, you have to treat them every three weeks. MOST cats are OK with just two treatments 3 weeks apart. But Chum's doc says it could be that as his immune system is compromised, he's not as good at getting rid of the worms. She agrees it's best to give at least one more round of treatment (three treatments, each three weeks apart).

We're treating ALL of the cats for it, not just Chumley. It's best to assume they've "shared" it via the litter box. That way we're sure they're not passing it back and forth between them. Are you saying you can't get close enough to use the topical treatment? We've got the opposite problem here - I have trouble getting meds into him, but I can get them on him.

We couldn't, so anyone with FeLV, we couldn't adopt. Thankfully, we haven't encountered that one yet.

That works if you're feeding them a raw diet. My understanding is that's really the only way to have it be effective. Giving them something like raw chicken wings several times a week won't have that much of an impact.

She does acupuncture, but he's not being treated with acupuncture (now, or yet). He is being treated with Chinese herbs based on the .... Chinese medical interpretation of the body (not sure how to phrase that LOL). She listens to his (meridian?) pulses, she talks about "hot" and "cold" and "wet". His initial diagnosis was an extreme spleen Qi deficiency, and an extreme yin deficiency. But apparently the herbs she initially prescribed are doing a good job of bringing him back into proper balance. (He sure does look better and clearly feels better than he did!).

Hi Barb! Oh my - a four paw polydactl - I'm already swooning.

for the neighbors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're a love for taking him in, and how WONDERFUL that the rescue is sponsoring him! Chumley was so food aggressive outside, we had to remove him from the colony - but he was so food motivated, he warmed up quickly to us. He was all set to go into the foster network when we found out he was FIV+. Their policy is to put them down. We had a choice - adopt him or kill him.

And just FYI, we have a colony outside of about 11. We don't test for FIV or FeLV when they're being TNR'd, only if they're going to go into the foster network. Cats with healthy immune systems can fight of the infection... that's why the prevalence of FIV/FeLV is only 2-3% of the feral cat population, despite how infectious FeLV is.

Anyway, when we realized he had the allergies, the first thing we did was not start eliminating foods. We immediately put him on the Hill's z/d allergy diet. Our mistake? He was eating wet AND dry and the z/d dry has brewer's yeast in it. Brewer's rice can be a trigger (I still can't figure out why it's used in the z/d!) The protein in the wet is hydrolized chicken, so even if chicken was the trigger, it shouldn't have been a problem.

He won't eat duck & pea food - not even the pill pockets LOL.

We have two overweight kitties though, so we ended up just moving everyone to an all wet diet. We never did an elimination diet for Chum, we just checked ingredients to avoid normal triggers. We basically avoid most grains and soy. He does get a small amount of wheat gluten in his pill pockets, and he does get WHOLE rice in his food (and that doesn't seem to be a problem). He also has some oat and barley. But to my way of thinking, if he's getting healtheir, and his immune system stronger, then he can handle small amounts of what could otherwise be triggers - especially as we rotate food and don't feed him the same thing all the time.

I'm allergic to everything they tested for (40 environmental things, including cats). I take zyrtec - and when I take my anti-allergy meds, I can be exposed to the allergans without triggering problems (usually. Mowing the lawn is a problem LOL). My theory is it should work the same way for Chum if he's being properly treated.

The wet food we feed him is:

Holisitic Select (rotate all flavors)
Instinct (rotate all flavors - not beef, no one likes it)
Wellness pouches - only those that do NOT have potato starch
Some c/d (just because we feed it to our other kitties). It means he gets a little corn meal gluten - but again, it's not a major amount in his overall diet.

So if there is a meat that's a trigger, he's not getting enough of it to trigger him (if that makes sense), because we rotate between turkey, duck, chicken, rabbit, seafood, &etc. He does get a disproportionate amount of turkey, duck & rabbit, because of his yin deficiency, and those meats are more "yin" than the others (though no meat is really yin). Anyway, I digress LOL.

Chumley is not specifically on a vitamin C supplement. He may well be at some point in the future, but we're addressing his yin deficiency and his spleen Qi deficiency first (making very good progress!), his dental needs, and then we'll go from there.

I don't know to what extent he gets vitamin C from the herbs he's on. This is what he's taking:

Prosperous Farmer: http://www.kanherb.com/cons_pi_kh_pr...uctNameId=1388 We've bumped him from one table 2x a day to one tablet 3x a day. This is used to address his spleen Qi deficiency (and it appears to be working well!).

Consolidate Qi: http://www.kanherb.com/cons_pi_kh_pr...uctNameId=1388. This controls his diarrhea (and does an excellent job of it!). He gets 3 drops 4x a day.

The next steps are treating his gingivitis and his dental (May 10), and then from there we'll see. But part of the reason we chose Chum's vet is because she's also trained in western herbs, not "just" Chinese Medicine, and we're going to explore following Bud's FIV therapy.

I REALLY recommend you read through this whole site. I note in advance that Bud's parents say that if they had to do it over again, they'd follow the 2nd protocol and skip the first. But Bud's virus fell to below detectable levels, and that's our goal.

http://www.fivtherapy.com

Interestingly, licorice is in both of Chumley's current treatments.

But you can see, vitamin C figures prominently in the treatment. But they rotate ALL the supplements, and the vitamin C was given every other month.

I'm sure you can find a holistic vet near you if you want to pursue it further. I found Chum's by searching at http://www.ahvma.org. We just really wanted a partner that knows what they're doing walking this path with us.

Just a quick FYI, though I think I mentioned it earlier in the journal here. The zyrtec didn't help Chum. But for allergies that affect the skin, it is supposed to be the best option and has helped a lot of kitties. The dose to start with is 1/4 pill am and 1/4 pill PM. We worked Chum up to 1/2 AM and 1/2 PM (so a full human dose just divided into two), but it really didn't help him. He ate it in a pill pocket, no problem (and no foaming!!!!). It also doesn't make them dopey like benadryl can/does.

FYI, I do feed them the seafood Holistic Select, but it's the only seafood anything they get. i feed four meals a day. (That's because I took them off of free feeding and it was the only way to prevent a complete revolt LOL, but I work from home, so it's doable). As I rotate about 12 different "flavors" between the three basic brands (if you exclude the c/d), they get any given food about once every three days.

But if the fish is a trigger, I'd forego the seafood flavor of the holistic select (I do feed it but not the Salmon & Shrimp). I don't know if Brewer's yeast is a problem for your boy. It doesn't seem to be for Chumley. But it is an ingredient in the Holistic Select foods.

You may also have to avoid two of the three Wellness pouches I give our gang. The only three I feed them are the Chicken, Crab & Herring; Chicken, Duck & Shrimp; and Turkey & Duck. The rest all have potato starch as an ingredient up there on the list, and even though it's not a large part of their diet, I avoid it because of its association with the risk of diabetes.

Of course, you can use some of the wellness canned products instead (the only ones without seafood are the chicken and the turkey). Our cats just don't like them. (I also don't understand why they bother including beta carotene; they have vitamin A in there as a supplement, and cats can't process beta carotene into vitamin A. Strange).

Notably, almost ALL of these foods have kelp as an ingredient, so keep that in mind. I don't know if it's a problem for your Curly, and if it is, I don't know that it would be in an amount that is a problem. I have no idea if cats that have a problem with seafood have a problem with kelp, but thought I'd mention it.

I'd love it if you kept me (us LOL) posted on what you're doing with Curly and how he's responding!

OH! Something else I'd like to mention. I mentioned coconut oil in passing somewhere in this journal. Because he's doing so well with this treatment, and his vet wasn't familiar with its use, we passed on continuing with it.

BUT, there are a LOT of arguments for coconut oil (a very specific type) being REALLY helpful in treating allergies. It's got antibacterial properties, it's got antifungal properties (it's a great treatment for Candida!), and it's got anti-inflammatory properties. One of its main components is Lauric Acid, which is one of the super beneficial ingredients in mother's milk. It is about 2% ALA, which cats cannot process, but it's just not that straightforward, because Flax Seed, which is in almost everything "grain free" is approximately 50% ALA. My vet explained why it's not damaging their livers and helps them process fats efficiently... the discussion was over my head.

But if you can get to a Walmart (or order it online), you can try Nutiva Coconut Oil. It doesn't HAVE to be this brand, but it's the easiest one to find of the type you would need. Because for it to work, it MUST be organic, extra virgin, cold pressed coconut oil - pressed from fresh coconut, NOT dried chopra (which is what almost all coconut oil is made from - they dry the coconut then press it). This is supposedly an excellent treatment for allergies. Chumley didn't like it very much, unfortunately, or we'd probably already know whether it worked or not. Several other of our cats LOVED it, however - they just don't have allergies, so I saw no reason to give them the extra fat.

If you want to try this, start with like 1/2 a teaspoon and make sure it doesn't affect his GI system first, and let him get used to it. You'd want to work up to a tablespoon a day. I heated it up in the microwave to melt it to add to Chum's food (and it is used for high heat frying, and now I know why. It took like three 15-second rounds to melt the small amount!). The kitties who liked it didn't need it melted and just ate it.

And as a P.S., there was a "study" done in... the Philippines, I think it was: a 14-patient study in HIV patients that indicated (raw, organic, extra virgin, cold pressed from fresh coconuts) coconut oil reduced the viral load. So another reason it might be worth a shot.

My concern was how it might interact with everything else in the Bud's Therapy treatment... again, just another reason we're working with a holistic vet.

May 10, 2010, Tuesday. Chumley went for a follow-up appointment, to get a shot of convenia for his gingivitis as I'm not going to be able to do the honey on his gums, and for his non-anesthetic dental.

Dental: It took about 15 minutes. He did great, and now I know I don't need to worry about anesthesia for teeth cleaning... just WOW. !!! Not too much plaque build-up, and his teeth look GREAT! I'm now "on the list," so when they schedule the return of the non-anesthesia teeth cleaning people, I'll get a call so we can schedule Chum and Spook (the only two kitties that need cleaning done every six months).

Check-up. OK, he gained an ounce over the last month. I need to trim down the amount of food I feed him. But he looks, feels, and sounds GREAT. His "pulses" sound great, his tongue is no longer swollen at all - he's just doing FABULOUS! He did have wax build-up in his ear, but it's just wax - no yeast, no fungus - so now we just have to clean his ears occasionally (we already have to do this for Flowerbelle).

The plan - keep him on the three pills of Prosperous Farmer daily. I now give him four drops of the Consolidate Qi at each meal (four times a day). Bring him back in two months so she can check on his gums and general health. Bring him back in four, when we'll probably do the retest of the Western Blot. He tested transient the first time, and we decided not to do the follow-up until we'd managed all his other health problems.

He also had his three treatments of Profender (each three weeks apart)... so he should be free of parasites now.

Actually, the vet was happy he's got a chunky frame, not that he was overweight. At the time, he wasn't - well - maybe a pound. He weighs about 15.5 pounds now, and she wants me to get him back to the 12-pound area.

Actually, it's worse for them if they're overweight if they hit a patch of inappetance (which is more common with FIV than the weight gain thing. I think it's likely your boy ate at the vet because he was stressed and bored. It's also something rescue kitties that didn't eat regularly for a long time do - eat whenever there's food available). You may know this already, but cats' digestive systems are not "designed" the same way people's are, and they are not efficient processors of their own fat. In fact, hipadic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) is a particular problem in overweight cats that get sick, because their livers can't process the fat their bodies are releasing when they stop eating. So that is GREAT that you're bringing his weight down, because if he ever does go through a period of inappetance, if he's an appropriate weight, his risk of developing a problem with his liver is much reduced.

Chum had one ear infection, and it cleared up with .... I don't remember the med. I'd have to go back to see if I documented that one here, I might have missed it. Chum does apparently have a problem with waxy build-up, but that just requires us cleaning his ears with a q-tip every few days.

All I really know is that Chumley was a mess when we first rescued him. Our regular vets (who are fabulous!) weren't really able to solve his problems - which is why we decided to pursue finding a vet (a DVM) also trained in alternative treatments. I really believe that any immune system problem can really benefit from eastern "medicine," because western medicine just doesn't manage it very well. It's an entirely different... foundation in "cause and effect," and immune-related problems just seem to do well with a (well-trained) eastern approach. These chinese herbs have worked miracles for Chum.

We've just started using it for Lazlo too. I'm hoping it'll help his hairball/vomiting problem. I'll keep ya posted.