Young cat with FIV desperate for help!

Hi

I have a 2 year old cat who is the love of my life who is FIV+. He has had a very hard life so far. He was dumped in a bin full of cat flu and could barely see and with FIV. We have constantly been battling urinary problems and he gets very stressed very easily. He is just getting over a UTI which took ages to resolve and they have checked his CD4 & CD8 and he is (from what I have been told) on the border of having AIDS.

This is the recent bloods and why I am having a melt down. He is so young to be progressing into AIDS and no one seems to be able to give me much information. The other thing is he is actually acting and looking the healthiest I have seen since I got him so I am not sure what to think!

CD5 (Pan T cell) abs.count 0.49x10'9/L normal range (0.4-3.5)

CD4 (T cell subset) abs.count 0.33x10'9/L normal range (0.3-2.0)

CD8 (T cell subset) abs.count 0.16x10'9/L normal range (0.15-1.6)

Does anyone have any advice or ideas that might help him?

I think diet is really the best we've been able to come up with for keeping FIV symptoms at bay for as long as possible. What are you feeding him? High protein, low carb, canned wet food is the best, although it is more expensive. Correctly researched raw feeding is the healthiest option for your average cat, but there's a bit of a debate as to whether a cat with FIV is at risk from being fed uncooked meat, so personally I'm sticking with canned for now.

Canned food will help immensely with the UTI's, because staying hydrated is essential and canned food is 70-80% water. My cat does not drink any water at all on her own, so I go ahead and add a little tap water to her canned food as well to be safe. I'd advise to feed only canned (in 2-3 meals a day) because of his UTI issues.

I'm guessing the stress and illness has aggravated his condition, so take whatever steps you can to lower his stress levels. You can get a Feliway diffuser to help calm him down. Brush him, play with him, do whatever makes him feel more at ease. 

Absolutely keep him indoors all the time, give him a monthly flea treatment, keep him away from other cats, pretty much anything you can to reduce the risk of him getting infected with something. I give my FIV + cat a quarter teaspoon of L-lysine powder in her food everyday to reduce the risk of developing an upper respiratory infection. 

I feed my cat Wellness CORE Turkey and Duck, and Indoor Formula, which after a lot of trial and error, seemed to be the healthiest food that she liked and agreed with her intestines. You want something that doesn't have any carbohydrate fillers-rice, potatoes, grains, wheat, even peas in large amounts, are absolutely unnecessary for a cat and are the equivalent of us eating junk food. The prescription diets you get at the vet usually have a lot of these fillers unfortunately. They can be useful to help with specific problems in the short term, but overall your cat is better off eating whatever most closely mimics what a cat would eat in the wild. Whatever protein your cat prefers is fine, but when you're switching food you probably want to start with something that has the same protein that you were feeding before. Slowly mix the new food in with the old food so it's not a shock to the digestive system. I also wouldn't advise anything that has fish as a main ingredient just to keep mercury buildup low, but small amounts of fish are fine. For treats, I give her only freeze-dried 100% meat ones. The Orijen brand seem to be her favorite. She's also a big fan of chicken or turkey baby food, which is nothing but meat, water, and cornstarch, so that's also a nice reward. 

This is my first FIV cat and she has been in good health with me overall so far, so I'm not sure what the progression of the disease looks like. I don't know if those WBC levels are anything to be concerned about yet or not. Does your vet want to seem him again soon to see if things are getting worse? The fact that he's not symptomatic I think is very encouraging! Now you just have to stack the odds as much in his favor as possible. He sounds like a dear. I'll be rooting for him!

I'm so sorry I don't have personal experience with FIV;  take a look at this link:http://www.v63.net/catsanctuary/vet_question.html    There is someone who used to post on this forum,@LDG   that also knows about this; maybe send a PM.

Sending positive vibes for all of you!

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</w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif][if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}</style><![endif]thank you for your reply. At the moment he is on prescription wet food and the prescription stress biscuits. I know biscuits aren’t good for him but he has a meltdown if he doesn’t get his biscuits! The vet has asked for me to just watch him and if he doesn’t deteriorate then redo the test in 4 months. About a month ago he was peeing blood and I had to get him to the closet vets. He seemed to come good but they kept saying to me that he was feral and wouldn’t let anyone touch him so they couldn’t treat him. After I got mad at them they miraculously managed to get a wee sample from him and I took him home. His infection eventually cleared but he has been traumatised by whatever they did to him there and now when my new vet sees him he needs to be sedated to do anything! Before he would let anyone touch him. So these recent tests are about a month or so after the incident.

I was wondering if a cats CD4 cells are low is it possible to increase them? Or will they just keep getting lower? My vet didn’t seem to be very helpful. He is going to a Chinese medicine vet today and I am keeping everything crossed that she can help!

thanks RuthM I will have a look at that website now

I've had success with holistic vets and allergies. Never dealt with an FIV+ cat other than a couple of fosters. But you might see what route they could take.

Yikes! Bad vet experiences are so frustrating. It feels like over half the battle for a sick cat is just finding the right vet; there are so many mediocre ones out there, and your cat needs more than just routine care. Next time you make an appointment or see a vet I'd emphasize how much stress he goes through and how worried you are about that adversely affecting his health. If they just kind of blow you off that'd be a red flag, but if they reassure you and explain the steps they take to make the experience as easy as possible for your cat, that's a good sign. The vet I go to now sprays Feliway absolutely everywhere, which is great, and the vet and the staff are all very gentle with my cat. She's very scared while we are there because she doesn't understand what's going on of course, but she's not traumatized and freaked out like she was at other vets.

When you do find a vet that you trust, ask if it's okay to switch from the prescription diet to something more wholesome. If the occasional biscuit keeps him happy, I'm sure that's fine for now. There is something to be said for keeping his routine intact! But eventually experiment with a few of the healthier options out there and see which ones peak his interest. Once he gets used to the texture of meatier treats he'll probably love them just as much.

Seeing as that one vet (who may or may not have known what he was talking about) didn't recommend a follow up for another 4 months, he must think he's reasonably stable. Also if that was the first time he's had his blood tested, you don't have a baseline to compare it to so we don't know exactly how unusually those levels are for him.

As far as CD4 cells go, I am no expert, but from what I can glean about human AIDS, the CD4 count can fluctuate a bit. Apparently stress and illness can cause lower levels. However, unlike for people, there's not a medication a cat can take to really control the virus and boost CD4 levels. AZT has been tried for cats, but it did not have much success. There's really a lot of unknowns about FIV, but it seems the trend in research has shown that it is not as debilitating a disease as it was once thought to be and many FIV positive cats are living close to normal lifespans. Your cat has had a very unique start to his life and no one can say for sure how that will affect his experience with the virus, but personally I'm optimistic that a very healthy lifestyle can make a difference.

I hope today's visit works out much better!

EDIT: Ok, so I've done a little more digging and there's quite a bit more out there than I thought. This site in particular: http://www.fivtherapy.com/bdltimetherapy.htm?ckattempt=1 might help you out. In answer to your question, it seems probiotics might help with CD4 levels! Floriforta is the cat probiotic I have experience with, and fortunately most cats think it tastes amazing.