Anemia

Hello Everyone.

Any insight will be helpful.

My lil girl Gracy (3yo DSH, from a shelter) was fine Tuesday and now  today she can barely walk to get a drink of water, eat or use the litterbox.

Wednesday:  We had workmen in the house, so her and her brother were put into the bathroom for the day. No, she did not get into anything bad.

Thursday:  She was a bit off, looked sad and tired, but nothing horrible. Her brother is an annoyance to her.

Thursday night: She would walk lie down, walk lie down...I weighed her on the wii and she lost 0.7 lbs in 10 days.

Friday: My husband takes her to the vet.  It almost became an emergency situation at the vet.  Gracy was anemic and had a fever, but thankfully not life threatening to require a blood transfusion. The vet (whom we trust 100%) is not sure what is wrong.  She took a bunch of blood, but some of the results will not be back until Tuesday for the (forgive me here if I am wrong) feBart, PCR feline flea/tick borne panel, PCV/T.P, FIV/ FeLV snap test. Gracy is an indoor car, but last summer we got infested with fleas. It took over 2 months to finally get rid of them. The vet thinks that Gracy picked up either a parasite, microb, or bacteria from the fleas.  Gracy has not had fleas for months, so we are worried that Gracy might have something that is very serious Her brother has no symptoms of illness.

Gracy is on Doxcycline 50mg twice a day (given in a pill pocket); Prednisolone 5mg at night; Cyproheptadine 4mg PRN ( We have not had to use this since she is eating well when we put the food in front of her).

We have instructions that ANYTHING changes to immediately go to the emergency vet.

Our lil girl is home with us now but looks so sick. Her pink pads are almost white. Does anyone have any insight? Tips?

I'm so sorry you and your little girl are going through this. I'm sorry I have nothing to offer advice wise. You seem to have covered and done all you can right now. I just want to send some your way. Hope all turns out ok.

Thank you   I need good vibes.  I just want her to be OK. 

I should add that she will only eat Chicken baby food.
 

I'm so sorry about your Gracy. :heart2:

At this point, don't worry about what she eats, just that she eats. Chicken babyfood is very easy on her tummy, it's a good choice so long as she's eating. If she doesn't, you should stop by a pharmacy and get a syringe (no needle) to assist feed her. You should be able to find it in the baby isle. If you need instructions, let us know. I hope it won't come to that, you do have the cypro on hand. :cross:

Our kitty, Tuxedo, fought anemia for 7-8 years. His was an autoimmune disorder, not a blood borne disease. Both are treatable, so long as you let her rest as much as she wants and get nourishment into her.

The Doxy will treat the blood borne disease. The pred will suppress her immune system if it's not a blood borne disease.

The only other cause would be internal bleeding - such as bleeding ulcers. We have a kitty that was anemic due to this (though there was a larger problem; he had a large cancerous mass in his stomach). The bleeding ulcers can only be diagnosed via ultrasound. If this is the issue, the clue would be that her stool is black and tarry, so if it's not, the problem most likely isn't internal bleeding.

If it's a blood borne disease, she just needs the antibiotics and time.

If it's an autoimmune problem, she'll likely need further testing. Tuxedo had to have a bone marrow aspirate done to make sure his body was capable of producing red blood cells. Once it was determined that he was, the issue was finding the right steroid to suppress his immune system enough to keep his red blood cell count up. (His body was attacking his red blood cells and destroying them, as if they were a virus). For a while, he needed supporting therapy, which was shots of Epogen, to help his body produce the red blood cells, as he wasn't creating them fast enough.

When he was very anemic, he showed no interest in eating. He would come stand in front of his bowl - but he'd just stand there like he'd forgotten why he was there. He was very spacey, and slept a lot. This is good at this point; you don't want them burning up their red blood cells with activity.

Just make sure you get the antibiotics into her; ensure she gets the required amount of nutrition daily. If she weighs 8 - 12 pounds, she probably needs 4 - 6 ounces of food a day. If she's not eating that on her own, you can try spoon feeding her, using your finger to wipe the babyfood on the inside of her cheek, or use a syringe. But food will go far in helping her keep up what strength she has. :heart2:

Many, many vibes for your Gracy. Please keep us posted!

Thank you SO MUCH! Just having you reassure me, means the world. I am terrified of losing her to the unknown.
 

I will start to measure how much she is eating. She is a lil overweight and weighs 15 pounds. I gave the Cypro at 11:30. She ate a few licks of cat food at 12:30 and she just ate a few licks of cat food now.  She seems to be eating every 2 hours a little bit. She had a poop accident in her box, but that's OK. Hubby just told me that she is drinking water right now. I am hoping that this is just a blood borne illness and not more.

She is getting her medications regularly and if need be I will force feed her. (Bad memories with that. I  force fed my Sebastian [15 yo] and after 6 weeks of being sick and almost 3 weeks so feeding, we let him go over the rainbow bridge. He has multiple issues.

Thank you again and I will keep in touch.

I'm a little bit concerned about her not going to the litter box to go to the bathroom. Is this the first time it's happened in the past few days since this started? Of course, the doxy is a pretty strong antibiotic, and that may be zapping her energy further. The pred usually perks them up a little bit... so it's a tough call on just how concerned to be about her not using the box. Is she going there to pee?

Just FYI, no matter how out of it Tuxie was, no matter how low his HCT, he continued using the box. But we have boxes everywhere, so it was never far for him to get to one, no matter where he was sleeping. So that's a consideration too - how far away her boxes are.

Do you know what her hematocrit was? Or her red blood cell count? (RBC).

Tuxedo had blood work done weekly for months. Months. :heart2: The number we always paid attention to (that they ran at the vet for us before sending out the blood for the CBC done at the lab) was the hematocrit (HCT). It measures the red blood cells as a percentage of the volume of blood. That means if she's dehydrated, it will register as being higher than it really is, but obviously the vet knows this. Just so you have the information to put things in perspective, 25% or higher is normal. Under 25% is anemic. When Tuxie was diagnosed, he was at 12%. This is low. And because he didn't respond to the steroids right away, he got a blood transfusion. I think it was 8% at that time - that was after the anesthesia for the bone marrow aspirate. :heart2:

It was a real rollercoaster ride with him. The lowest measure of his HCT was 7%. High teens is survivable indefinitely, but they'll be lethargic. Low teens is... survivable for some time, so long as they're at least stable there and getting treatment - and begin to respond at some point. Anything single digits, and you're either looking at a blood transfusion, a VERY quick turn-around, or a week .... and depending on how low, a few days. :heart2:

Depending on her blood work, and how she responds to the meds, the vet may or may not recommend a blood transfusion at some point. There are many cats that have successfully had more than one. But our vet explained to us that cat blood is far more complicated than human blood, thus more difficult to properly match donors. Because of this, SOMETIMES, a cat will "reject" a second transfusion. The way it's done is that a tube is basically put into the kitty's circulation - their blood is drawn in, it is mixed with the donor blood, and then goes back into the kitty. When a cat rejects the transfusion, the blood, where mixed, clots, so obviously it can't be transfused into the kitty. So our vet was very clear that a transfusion had to be a choice of last resort, because we may only have that "one bullet." This was the case for our Tuxedo. Even though he was very anemic, he made it through the anesthesia for the bone marrow aspirate just fine. But he needed the transfusion, because his HCT had fallen to 8%. It was up and down; he received the epigen, and that helped.... but when he backslid, it fell to 7%. The vet told us he was out of bullets. We tried a 2nd transfusion, but his body rejected it. What saved his life was switching to a new steroid: he tried depomedrol instead of prednisone, and it worked.

I hope I'm not scaring you. My only intent is to give you information, so it helps you understand what they're saying, and what they're recommending and why. :heart2:


And YES! I forgot to mention, feeding her little bits frequently is the best approach, if you are there and have the time. :nod:

More vibes for your Gracy!

I'm already scared. Gracy has been using the litter box, but I think she just did not have the energy to get up. She is not walking around much.

I do not know her lab results.  I need to call the vet on Tuesday to find out the results of the blood work that had to be sent out. After examining Gracy on Friday the vet did talk to my husband about a blood transfusion, but when the results came back the vet said that the Anemia was not life threatening.

The feeding every 2 hours seems to be going well. I am trying to let her sleep and not bother her, but I am a worried mama, so every 1/2 hour I check on her, every hour offer water and food but she seems to only eat every 2 hours. She just walked three feet to a sunny spot on the floor   Tonight after her 7pm meds I will let her sleep three hours and wake her up for food. during the day we are keeping her downstairs and at night we take her upstairs and made a heating box in our room and set up a litter box, water and food in the bathroom.

I'm trying so hard to do everything but it's killing me that she looks so sick.

Thank you again   I really do appreciate it.

Hello LDG.

Gracy took a turn for the worse overnight. I am too exhausted to write it all. I started force feeding her. Went to ER. Temp 105.7.  Hemocrit 13.  ER did not have blood then the $2000.00+ cost at the vet over an hour away was too much. We are letting her be for now. I will see our regular vet in the am. Thank you for yesterday I worried less because of you. No known cause yet. I will continue the meds and feedings. I do not know what else to do.

Oh hun, I hope she'll be OK! The only problem (and I'm sorry for even mentioning it) is that you don't know what her HCT was before you went. Right now, the issue would be the change - how rapid was it, as your vet felt she wasn't in danger.... we just don't know what that means.

I'm so sorry. I wonder why the temp.... blood borne diseases usually don't cause a temp, she didn't have one before, and she's on antibiotics.

Mega vibes for Gracy.

She had a fever at the Vet on Friday, but Saturday her fever was gone. 101.2.

The Vet on Friday said that it was not life threatening which makes me think that her number was higher. We go to a Just Cat vet, so I know that she would never steer us wrong. She took care of my boy Sebastien who had an auto-immune disease for many years.

Thank you You have helped me tremendously.
 

and more

Gracy crossed the rainbow bridge this morning. She was in respiratory failure this morning, so I let her go with dignity.  All tests were negative (FIV, FeLV, Bart....) Without more testing, we will never know. I am bringing her brother in to the vet today as a precaution.  Thanks again LDG

Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry! I've been following this thread...gosh I'm so sorry for your loss of your precious Gracy.

otto said:

Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry! I've been following this thread...gosh I'm so sorry for your loss of your precious Gracy.

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Thank you. It means a great deal that you replied. She was my baby girl, my Gracy Baby!

Oh I'm so so so sorry. :grphug2: :grphug2: :grphug2: :grphug2: :grphug2: :grphug2: I just can't imagine what took her so quickly. It sounds like a poison, but she had no symptoms to point to that. Oh hun.... my heart is breaking for you. :heart2:

Gracy

Thank you. My heart is broken and now it crushed...her brother is sick now, maybe. I made a post about PK. Thank you so much for helping me through this.  All best to you and your babies. You are a great mama.
 

I just wanted to express my sincere condolences at the loss of your sweet Gracy. My own cat Liz suffered from a mysterious anemia several years ago and I know how absolutely horrifying it can be. Never in my life have I felt a worse panic than that for one of my pets. Please know how good you were to her to have done all you did to save her. I know how exhausting the care coupled with the worry can be. If it's any consolation, please know you were such a good, good cat mom to her.

I'm so so sorry for your loss . Sending her brother will be ok.