Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV)

TouchingVirus

Our 2 year old ginger short-haired cat has been diagnosed with FeLV and I'm wondering if anybody has any experience dealing with cats with this? Jasper has a raft of medical problems as a result - he's skin & bone despite being fed twice a day, he's got the cat flu for the 3rd time in a year, conjunctivitis for the 3rd time this year and has an ongoing kidney disorder that leaves him drinking lots and gives him mouth ulcers.

Of course these are symptoms and that's what we're treating as we realise there is no cure for FeLV, but has anybody advice for us? Like at the moment he's fine, playful, affectionate and apart from the minor problems he's still the cat we know and love. Talking about euthanasia at this early stage is definitely not a runner, it'd be a bit reactionary but if anybody else cares to share I'm all ears.

We've a black & white cat too that is separated now until we get her tested & vaccinated tomorrow or Friday. If she has FeLV then she might just be a healthy carrier because she has no symptoms at all.

Have to say I'm a bit devastated at this news because I didn't even know there was a vaccination against it

The Sweeper

Hey OP

Sorry to hear your mog has FeLV.

In order to beat the virus, the cat needs a strong immune system. The best place for an immune system boost is diet and supplementation. This may be helpful alongside whatever the vet is prescribing to treat the cat.

First, you will need to keep your cat indoors only if you're not already doing that. He needs to be indoors or in a restricted outdoor enclosure for the rest of his life, otherwise he will pass FeLV on to other people's roaming cats.

The two supplements I would try with his food are two amino acids: L-lysine and Taurine. Both are available quite widely - L-Lysine is usually on the health food shelves, and Taurine is a little more specialist but again body building shops often have it.

L-lysine helps the cat fight the symptoms associated with the feline herpes virus and it boosts recovery from respiratory tract infections, sneezes, snuffles and runny eyes. It can also help protect from reinfection. I'm not sure if your mog is suffering herpes along with everything else but he may well be, and that's what could be working in tandem with FeLV to give him the permanent snufflies.

Taurine is an amino acid that is vital for cats to live. It comes from muscle meat, and is heavily supplemented in manufactured petfood (because a lot of petfood protein comes through plant material which contains no taurine and they have to supplement.)

L-lysine is usually sold in tablet form, about 500mg per tablet. Taurine is sold in powdered form. In both cases, initially I'd supplement about 1/3 of the L-lysine tablet and 1/3 of a teaspoon of taurine over the cat's food once a day. Crush the tablet with a spoon and mix through the food.

Also consider what kind of food you're feeding your boy. With the kidney problems and everything else I'd consider going right back to basics - but you'll need the support of your vet. I feed mine a daily mix of a small amount of top quality kibble with few fillers, a medium amount of good commercial wet food and a large amount of raw meat with fat, sometimes with bone and skin if I can get it.

For kibble I'm currently preferring Royal Canin - they have types that don't use any corn as filler. Commercial I buy anything that lists beef or chicken as the main protein source, with no fish in it. Raw I feed beef, veal, lamb's hearts, mutton, kangaroo meat, ox hearts and raw chicken carcasses for bone (calcium and phosphorous).

I have to say I wouldn't feed an underweight cat that's struggling with his kidneys a kibble-only diet. I'd see if I could persuade him to move to raw as much as I could. (There's an argument that too much protein is bad for kidneys, but I still think that a source of species-appropriate protein - e.g. not corn on the cob and rice - is far better for your cat than vegetable by-products).

I used L-Lysine extensively with a few of my cats when I got them first because they were shocking snufflers with weeping eyes, sneezes and coughs. The L-Lysine did something that repeated courses of vibravet just didn't do - it built up their immunity and stopped the symptoms. At the time we had a three-cat household and every time one of them improved, they'd pass the virus on to the other two. The L-Lysine treatment initially took about three months total to have a considerable effect (lots of symptoms to none at all) and a further three months to really seem to kick the virus away for good. After that I would supplement L-Lysine before an upcoming stressful event - a move, for instance. Now the eldest cats are almost three years and have had no snuffling symptoms since we finally kicked them two years ago.

The taurine supplementation appears to do only good things. Bright eyes, shining coats, good muscle tone.

Good luck with Jasper. I'm a firm believer that excellent diet, appropriate supplementation where needed and enforced stress-free rest and lots of love does a whole lot to improve the health and wellbeing of our animals.

TouchingVirus

Thanks so much Minesajackdaniels, that was a great post and very informative too.

We're keeping him indoors for now, away from the other cats while we get them tested and vaccinated. I'll certainly go looking for the supplements for him. He's a bit of a fighter when you try give him tablets so crushed up is definitely the way to go.

We're giving him Hills prescription K/D dry food, with a healthy dose of meat from the tin/packet. Since we give the dogs the meat I don't think it'll be an issue putting some of it aside for Jasper

Once again, thank you for the help

The Sweeper

No worries - just an aside, as you mention your dogs eating tinned meat and putting aside for the cat too, never feed a commercially produced petfood designed for a dog to a cat, and never feed catfood to a dog either.

Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they have to eat meat to live. Many of the proteins, amino acids and vitamins a cat needs to maintain its body, it can ONLY get from eating meat, organs, skin and bone. For instance, I've read up that cats cannot synthesise vitamin A from beta-carotene - so in other words, while if humans eat carrots, they can get a lot of vitamin A from them because our bodies can use the beta-carotene in carrots to make vitamin A, cats can't do that. They have to have vitamin A, so they have to eat liver.

There is a lot of offal in petfood - hearts, livers, tongues, cuts that aren't so commercially viable for the retail industry. Also cats have to have taurine, arginine, phosphorous, calcium, vitamins A and D, so on... All of those things will be added to a commerical petfood in different proportions for a cat as than for a dog.

Cats evolved eating rodents, birds, lizards and insects. Dogs evolved eating rodents, rabbits, and medium to large mammals. The proportion of skin to bone to organs is different in those animals, and over hundreds of thousands of years, evolution to maximise benefit from those food sources is what has given us our modern day cats and dogs.

The upshot is that if you feed dogfood to a cat over a long period, or catfood to a dog over a long period, you will create imbalances in the animals' systems, namely deficiencies in some things and excesses in others.

You can feed the same raw meats to both animals (in different proportions and volumes), but don't switch species-specific commercial wet food or kibble between your pets.

(As a random aside - cat food can be a lot higher in calories than dog food. I've heard of a vet asking someone who owned a tiny teacup sized puppy - extra mini yorkie or some abomination like that - to feed it catfood in the short term, because its stomach couldn't get the sustenance it needed from the volume of dogfood it was able to hold.)

Outkast_IRE

I wouldnt think of putting the cat down yet.
I always say only get the animal put down when its in constant pain or its quality of life is such that it has no enjoyment anymore .

If its a happy playful cat enjoy it and make the most of it

TouchingVirus

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

No worries - just an aside, as you mention your dogs eating tinned meat and putting aside for the cat too, never feed a commercially produced petfood designed for a dog to a cat, and never feed catfood to a dog either.

That was just a poor sentence on my part. I meant the meat scraps - the leftover chicken and steak from the family meals - both cooked and uncooked, mostly uncooked. We've always fed the cats catfood and the dogs dogfood. I never knew why, but now there's a very good reason I'll never swap the two over. Thanks again, you're a wealth of information

@Outkast_IRE - Yes, the vet didn't even mention euthanising the cat and this stage, not that I'd have let her. He's still a cat, a fantastic cat and we'll hold on to him until the point where it's better to let go.

TouchingVirus

A sad update for this thread, we had to let Jasper go today. Despite my best efforts, he just couldn't manage. He wasn't eating, went into kidney failure and just stopped being himself. It was like he was just waiting to move on so I brought him to the vet and had him put to sleep. The vet told me 2 year old cats just don't get Kidney Disease and Jasper's mother most likely had FeLV when she was pregnant and passed it on to the kittens. Doomed from day one, but cherished all the same!

Thanks very much for your help The Sweeper, I've learned quite a bit about cats from this episode and while we had a traumatic end it'll definitely come in handy whenever we feel up to adopting again. For now though, we'll keep our other cat happy and are happy to report it's FeLV free & vaccinated now.

cmf86

So sorry to hear about your cat! Hope yous are ok, at least you know the cat isnt suffering anymore.

xx

cotton

I'm so sorry. RIP Jasper. xxxx

The Sweeper

Sorry to hear about Jasper - but it's good news that the remaining fuzzball is FeLV-free so I wish you and the other cat much happiness going forwards!