Low White Blood Cell Count, Weak Legs, Incontinence?

My kitty is 9 months old, 3.5 pounds, and lived the first 4ish months of her life as a feral (although she was born in my back yard).

She came to live inside sometime before Halloween. Her mother left her at our doorstep. My kitty had a bad eye infection that caused her eye to be swollen shut for some time before she came to our door. Once we realized her mom wasn't coming back we took her in and took her to the vet. She was given all her shots and FIV tests. She turned up healthy with the exception of the eye - she had an eye infection that was so bad it had to be removed. The vet pushed the eye off as long as we could trying to get her healthier. She had her eye enucleated right before Christmas. She had two “flare ups” in January where her eye (that was sewn shut) swelled up and burst with blood and puss. After two rounds of more medicine that stopped. The doctor thought it happened because she was so small that there was some kind of connection in the back of her eye socket that wasn’t healed correctly initially.

Fast forward. In early March I noticed she would take nibbles of her cat litter out of the box. I switched to non-clumping litter and started giving her a vitamin at the vets request, but this is something she is still doing. About 3 weeks ago she became incontinent and the weakness in her legs started. It all happened at once. She still urinates in her litter box, but she has no idea when she is having a bowel movement. Her legs have gotten much worse in the past 3 weeks – she is almost unable to walk on her hind legs. Her front legs are still very strong. After 3 trips to the vet THIS WEEK and a full blood panel it turns out she has NO white blood cells. The vet said she’s as low as she could be. He gave her another FIV test which was negative. He has referred me to a specialist an hour away from where I live.

I am at a complete loss as to what’s wrong with her. I know something is clearly wrong with her nerves and the vet thinks it’s related to something in her brain. Anyone have any ideas? Any similar experiences? I don’t know what’s connected and what’s not.

Well, we had a kitty that was severely anemic. He had an immune system problem, and the anemia was controlled by steroids. At first it was prednisone, then it was depomedrol. We had a cat with weak back legs - it was a parasite problem that self-resolved. We have a cat whose eye had to be removed because of herpes. But we didn't have all these problems in one kitty. :rub:

Anemia can be caused by so many things. And I'm sorry, but anemia is either because of internal bleeding, or parasites attacking the blood cells (most common), or a dysfunction of the bone marrow due to disease. Anemia is not a neurological problem. Your vet doesn't seem to have his thinking cap on straight. :dk:

Were steroids administered? Were any antibiotics used? Was kitty tested for hemobart or other parasites that could cause this? Baytril can usually clear that up.

If it's something like FIP, there may not be much that can be done.

I have NO idea if the weak back legs and anemia are related. But if your vet said her hematocrit is "as low as could be" - what is it? If it is single digits, you have VERY little time if he did nothing to try to treat the anemia (giving her baytril or doxy and/or a steroid). Was a blood transfusion discussed? If it's low teens, you've got a little time if you can keep nutrition in her - if she's not eating on her own, please syringe feed her - but you don't know whether or not - or at what rate - her anemia is getting worse.

Personally, I would call the specialist and say it's an emergency and get there ASAP - and I mean ASAP, because your vet - unless we're missing information - doesn't seem to be helpful at all here.

Vibes for you and your baby girl.

We just found out about the WBC yesterday afternoon. Up to that point he was thinking the legs, incontinence, and eating litter was related to something neurological. I think the low WBC count threw him off. Up to this point he was sending me to Nashville for a CT scan. I'll still be taking her, but not until early next week. He gave me a copy of her test results, but I'm not really understanding them - I just know her WBC is bad. There's a bar with low, normal, and high, and her WBC is all the way to the left. It does say result "1.44 K/uL" and reference interval "5.50-19.50" - so I assume that's the single digit you're concerned about... "NEU" is also low and he said that's related to WBC too. "LYM" and "PLT" are also low, but not as low (they're like middle of the low bar) but I have NO CLUE what those mean. Everything else is in the normal range.

Her eye was removed because of infection, so I don't know if that infection spread. She had internal bleeding in her eye twice after surgery, so maybe she's bleeding again, it's just going into her head rather than filling her empty eye socket? She IS eating her dry food, taking her vitamin, and drinking water without any problems.

He gave her antibiotics last week and they will last up through Sunday, and he gave me several steroid shots to give her and those will last through Sunday too. She hasn't been tested for anything other than FIV. Do you think it could be FIP?

Thank you for your response.

I have to apologize - I responded as if the problem was a low red blood cell count, not a low WBC count. Though our boy that had the problem with anemia also had a low WBC. Now I'm wondering why the steroids if the WBC was so low. Steroids suppress the immune system further. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

As the FeLV and FIV tests were negative, those are two biggies ruled out. Kitty may simply be fighting an ongoing infection - or have a compromised immune system for some other reason. :dk: But clearly other tests are needed. Don't know if this helps much, but... http://www.ehow.com/about_5381888_low-blood-cell-count-cats.html

I don't know enough about FIP to have an opinion. There are several active threads right now discussing it, with helpful links. :nod: I sure hope it isn't. I do hope she's just been fighting an infection for some time. :cross: