Felv testing result

We adopted 3 kittens from our vet in February this year. All of them were tested, dewormed, spayed/neutered before we got them. They were roughly 5 months hold. Everything was great but i noticed the smaller of three, Molly licking the fireplace hearth and sleeping more than the other two. I took Molly to the vet on 08/15 and she was severely anemic with a hematocrit of 11% and low platelets. She had a blood transfusion and was able to get up to 24% so we brought her home. She had tested negative for felv and fiv when she was adopted and on the snap test at the vet that same day. Before they did the blood transfusion they took blood to send to the lab that showed a positive Elisa test. That was shocking and totally unexpected

Over the last week she has gone down to 17% back up to 22%, back down to 17% and was 18% as of this morning. They also performed snap tests at the vet each time and all of them were negative. Even more bloodwork was sent out for two elisa tests and we had two Ifa tests performed at different labs. The elisa came back negative from both labs but one lab showed a positive ifa. We are doing one more ifa, the lab is actually doing it for free for the vet and will get the results in a few days.

Has anyone experienced this type of inconclusive testing? The vet is not ruling out a positive result but it is frustrating for her and me that it is not clear. It may never be clear. She is taking this personally because we adopted the kitties from her. Other possibilities include a blood parasite but the test was negative or autoimmune disorder. She is currently on prednisolone and doxycycline.

I was curious if anyone had some thoughts on this. We have not tested the other two kitties yet since we wanted to get all the results back and both of them are thriving. Molly has had far more negatives than positives but because her anemia is an issue it's hard to make a call on if she is really positive or negative.

Thanks.

That is really odd that she is getting different results on multiple tests.  I do know that a young kitten can have a negative result when they do have leukemia but that doesn't explain the different results on multiple tests taken now.  Hopefully someone that knows more about it will be along soon. 

I do know that another member here who has been through anemia, probably auto-immune in nature had better luck with depomedrol rather than prednisolone.

Yes, I've heard of a kitten testing negative then actually having it, but never heard of there being so many tests run and most of them being negative and only one showing positive.  But whatever is causing the Anemia, I hope your Vet can get it figured out. 

I've heard of FIV tests giving varying results in kittens under six months (my vet won't even test for that until 6 months). But your post is specifically referring to FeLV... just curious, how did the other two kittens in this litter test for FeLV (assuming all three kittens are from the same litter)?

We haven't tested the other two yet but they are from the same litter. They tested negative before we adopted them.

The mystery continues. My vet called and said the third ifa test was negative. That was the test we were going to use as determination of her status. The vet is removing felv positive or negative off the table and concentrating on her anemia. The most recent cbc showed only slight improvement but not enough to matter. She has been diagnosed with non-regenerative anemia and it's unclear what is causing this. That will be the next step in the process i guess. I have had done some research but I'm not sure what else i can do. Would tcyte or transfer factor be useful since it would help her immune system?

I called 4 vets in the area that use itcyte and received different opinions. I am going to discuss ths with my vet tomorrow along with maybe starting her on transfer factor.

Transfer factor is supposed to help with the immune system....as far as the T-cyte goes, I thought that was mainly for FIV kitties. 

As for causes, I read that sometimes it's actually from malnutrition.  Has she been losing weight or anything like that recently.  I know sometimes cats have something called malabsorption, which prevents all the nutrients from being absorbed.  (just throwing things out there if there is no obvious reason for her anemia) 

Also, I read that if the prednisolone doesn't work well, sometimes depomedrol works.  (you know pred suppresses the immune system, don't you?)