Successful treatment for feline distemper?

Our full sibling cats, Tommy and Marco, who received all the usual vaccinations, both had sneezing from in November from what I thought was an insignificant head cold.

On December 14, 2010, I took Tommy to Animal Medical Center in Auburn, where he weighed 10 pounds. Dr John Richards examined him and found him to have a low fever, but little else to justify the listlessness and hyperventilation, so suggested a CBC with differential count blood test to determine whether it was a bacterial or viral problem. I came back about an hour later, and he found that Tommyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s WBCs were depressed to half normal. Something was killing off his white blood cells. He said it was probably feline distemper.

Dr. Richards said that precise diagnosis was based on change in antibody titer, and without a baseline would not be that accurate; but it really couldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t be anything else besides feline distemper, since Tommyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s white blood cells were being destroyed and he was already down to half of low normal. Dr Richards managed to gently tell me that there was no cure, all treatments were palliative, and Tommy was going to die.

My response was that I am an alternative medicine doctor, and while I accepted that traditional medicine offered no hope for Tommy, I was not going to give up without trying alternative methods. Since feline distemper starts with a respiratory virus, and vitamin D greatly impedes respiratory virus infection, I thought vitamin D might help.

As for vitamin D, the only supplement I stock in my chiropractic home office is 5,000 IU / tab and it was with marked trepidation that I slipped one of those small powerful tablets far enough down Tommyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s throat that he had to swallow it....

Click to expand...