The ironic thing about this statement is that Jake really does look so little now. Even though he was only 9.5 pounds before, his fur made him look HUGE!
Yes they did some tests (although not as many as they wanted to) and he had a positive for lupus. I guess it's very difficult to diagnose though and I think they said for it to be a truely positive diagnosis, they have to be tested again 6 months after the first. So obviously he hasn't had the follow up test. The vet really feels this is what it is because he has had the break outs exactly where they expect them to be plus the test. And the fact that he didn't respond to antibiotics (multiple!) or a steroid inj. Boy I tell ya... it's been frustrating because there are so many other diseases and disorders that are similar. It drove me nuts just trying to research it myself. But they ruled out the eosinophilic granuloma. One of the clues was that he didn't have any ulcerations to his lips/mouth or mucos membranes for the most part. From what I understand, skin disorders are hard to diagnose anyway. They also thought at one time that it could be ringworm too. But I understand that is highly contagious and none of my other cats or me caught it. And I guess it is one thing that can be passed from cats to humans. And nothing showed up with the light. So by process of illimination, we chose which tests to run (because of my limited resources) and that is how they finally came up with it and the positive results for lupus erythomatosus (or however it is spelled!)
I hadn't heard of it in cats before either. There is some information on the web about it but not tons. So I didn't even think about it until the vet mentioned it. And even then I guess I was kind of in denial. I didn't want to think that was it and I sort of pushed it out of my mind. Very weird, huh? Anyway, I've been having a hard time accepting it.
Thanks - I've bookmarked it!
