Histoplasmosis

Hello everyone. I am new to this site but certainly not new to cats, I've loved them all my life and have had many adopt me as well. Sadly, my fledgling post on here is a sad one. Today I have to send my sweet Cali across the bridge and it comes completely unexpected.

This past Saturday (5 days ago), she was behaving as her normal precocious self, Sunday...she was listless, barely moving about and not eating/drinking; we kept an eye on her Sunday but when she was no better by Monday morning we took her to the vet fist thing.

A little background on Cali. She came to us about four years ago, just showed up at our house (we live in the country). Initially we thought she had a broken leg so of course we took her to the vet had that looked at and got her all her vaccinations. Turns out her leg had been broken but since it had never been cared for it had healed as it was....but she didn't let it show her down, she's one tough cookie!

Back to our situation, Monday the vet took blood (she had a 105 temp) and decided to treat her for a virus at first, gave her fluids...and she came home Monday afternoon at which time, she seemed to be doing a bit better...sadly that only lasted a couple of hours. By bedtime she was back to totally listless and not moving. The next day the vet went ahead and ran tests on her blood since we let her know she wasn't improved. Bad news...she has an uncommon fungal infection that has attacked her bone marrow (Histoplasmosis.) It's basically killing off her red blood cells and platelets.  The treatment for this just kills me, as much as we want to save our little girl (and boy do we)...the treatment is extremely expensive and the vet told us it may not work. So, since she is obviously suffering we have decided to do the kindest thing we can and let her go.

My question is this though, do any of you have any experience with this fungal infection? I know it can be picked up in dirt or by bird droppings from a bird that had been infected but does it act this quickly (within a 4-5 day span) or is it possible that this is a result of when she broke her leg before she came to us and it's been incubating for a long time? I know either way the outcome is the same for our little girl I just would like to know in case I see this happen in any of our other babies too.

Thanks for any input about it.

We have had a couple of threads about it in the past.  Evidently it is a long hard struggle with treatment to rid the cat of it.  I believe I would have made the same decision you did.   Sometimes even if you have all the money in the world, you just would not put them through the struggle and it is kinder to let them go.  I am really sorry for your loss.  I will paste in links to the two threads I found here so you can read other peoples experiences.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/287078/histoplasmosis

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/219635/histoplasmosis-infection

By the way, since you just joined, it takes awhile to get used to all the great features in this site.  If you are reading those last two threads and you have questions for any of the people who have written something in them, you can send them a private message by putting your cursor on their name, and a drop down menu will appear with several choices in it.  The third one down is "Send PM" and you can use that to send them a private message.  Since treatment can take so long to be successful, some of those cases may still be active and they are not continuing the old thread because the cat is still being treated but not healed yet.

You have not added your location to your profile.  I would be interested to know if you live in Texas or Oklahoma like some of the parties in the threads above do.

I would be interested to know if you live in Texas or Oklahoma like some of the parties in the threads above do.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for the information, I will certainly go read up on those....and I live in Oklahoma, near the Kansas border.

There is a simplified map showing high risk areas in the following article:

http://www.thoracic.org/patients/pa...AfufJ6KuXTUsZe4noFYkDt838F1XrXakdehoCtxbw_wcB

This is one of those unfortunate organisms that affects other species, including humans, so t is good to know that you are living in a higher risk area so you can take certain precautions.

Just seeing this. What medication is your vet suggesting as treatment?

We have a cat in our rescue that had histoplasmosis when we acquired her, though we didn't realize it. Unique situation and we took custody of her litterly in the middle of her giving birth (a kitten was stuck.) she had 4 kittens. Three born deceased (including the stuck kitten) and one born alive, though he only lived for 4 days.

Took a little while to get a diagnosis (maybe 2+ weeks?) but she was sick with other things.

She had noticeable spots in her lungs, though our vets were not all on the same page as to what was causing the king issues. However, she wasn't as sick as your girl sounds.

We did treatment for her (6 weeks?) and she recovered beautifully. This was 18 months ago and Josie continues to do well. She requires a canned-only diet (cannot digest dry food of any kind) and has some heart damage, but is not currently on meds for this.

Ultimately, this is about your girl and her prognosis. It never hurts to get a second opinion if you have doubts or are unsure (or even to find a vet able to treat for cheaper.) You CLEARLY have her best interest at heart. If she doesn't have a good prognosis even with treatment, I would have to think long and hard. We never want our furbabies to suffer.

Hi, thanks everyone for responding. Sadly, we had to let our little girl go. It all happened so fast! One day she was her normal self, the next....sick as could be, by the fourth day when we had learned her bone marrow was affected she couldn't walk at all and she was obviously suffering in pain. I had a discussion with our vet about our alternatives for treatments but when the vet doesn't even seem hopeful about recovery that's never a good sign.....her red blood cells and platelets were being horribly attacked. Our vet hadn't seen a case like this progress so quickly before. Had we decided to go ahead and attempt treatment she would have wanted to send us to a vet who specialized in these cases. Cali would have had an extended stay at a vet's, been on I.V. treatments and our vet felt the prognosis for recovery still wasn't good at all. What medication specifically she mentioned I don't remember (sorry) but I do know she said it was "extremely expensive, making this treatment cost ineffective for most people."

So, we brought her home for one last night so we could all love on her one last time and say goodbye and our vet came out the following day so she could pass at home instead of in the clinic.

I am really sorry for your loss.   It is heartbreaking, but I believe you did the kindest thing for her, and I doubt you could have saved her since it was already affecting her blood cells.  I would suggest not letting your other cats out since you now know histoplasmosis is active in your area.  Also, check with your vet as to what extra cleaning you should do to assure there are no spores of this mold in your house. 

Great advice, thanks so much...I will do that.