I have to agree with you wholeheartedly at all points!! I have three definite FIV boy cats - they are so healthy!!!!! I rescued all of them three or four years ago, and they are the chubbiest, and happiest cats of all. One developed Diabetes a couple of years ago, and I almost lost him after dental cleaning surgery due to an reaction from anesthesia, and he just laid in the room for two weeks with no food (I had to give him fluid everyday, and I couldn't force feed him as he would spit them back) - my vet thought that I should give up and euthanize him, but I couldn't, and my holistic vet thought that I should try a bit longer - and in two weeks, he stood up and started eating (I cried so hard when I saw the miracle happen) - and now he is a chubby happy boy (his name is Leo) -
Since I haven't experienced with any serious symptoms with my FIV cats, I just don't know if I should make a big deal out of it at all - I have two other possibly FIV (possibly, but least likely) kitties, but they are both asymptomatic as well - they are also chubby and very healthy! I am waiting for Western Blot Result from Antech for Squeekie(Buddah)'s result to see if it will confirm their ELISA result - and I am praying and and feeling that it will come back as a negative (I am crossing my finger - and please pray for her also)- -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of TenHouseCats Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:05 PM To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: Re: OT:FIV false positive? LONG answer! oh, heavens, yes, chris--not only that, but to a great degree, all FIV really seems to do is make cats big, lazy and couch-potatoes... seriously--from the experiences at the FIV/FeLV sanctuary, the HEALTHIEST population--including the owner-surrenders, strays and ferals, were the FIVs. three years ago, some strays brought in distemper. altho ALL the cats had been vaccinated when they came into sanctuary, we had no way of knowing, of course, whether they'd ever gotten the full, two-series sets of shots to "set" the immunity. as you may or may not know (i didn't), distemper spreads VERY VERY easily--as little as an infected grain of litter carried from room to room is said to be enough. TWO HUNDRED CATS died from that distemper episode, despite heroic medical intervention (this happened about 6 months before i arrived, so i luckily didn't have to deal with it....). not ONE FIV cat got the distemper--not one. we saw similar results with less serious infections--when uris ran around the buildings, the FIVs either didn't get it, or recovered faster. why? who knows. there was some talk about just dumping the FIV room and moving them from their building into the general population--but we didn't want to make them sick! the only consistent medical problem that the FIVs seem more prone to is herpes viruses, and as everyone on this list knows, daily doses of lysine dropped the incidence of that right back down. there ARE end-stage symptoms of FIV that appear in some cats, but in most cases, FIV cats die of old age before they appear.... we call the FIV room the neighborhood bar: since 95+% of FIV cats are former toms who got it while out fighting over girls (or, as one vet suggests, running AWAY from males fighting over girls), it's mostly big old neutered toms. once neutered, that need to prove themselves evaporates. did i mention BIG? the largest cats in the sanctuary are the FIV boys--it's been great fun to take the 16#rs and up to vets who know nothing about FIV--"they can't possibly be sick!" exactly.... they lay around all day watching tv, drinking catnip beer, playing "go fish," and talking about the mice they used to chase. you bring the food into the room and they say, "um, could you bring that bowl a little closer to ME, please?" they are the lovingest bunch of cats in the world--laps are their favorite places to nap. the few girls (mostly calicos, interestingly enough) just walk around shaking their heads wondering how they ever ended up in such a place. MANY of the sanctuary's FIV cats ended up going home with volunteers because they were just too irresistable. i have two fivs with my cats now; lost a third last august to something totally unrelated to FIV. many tnr groups don't even test for FIV anymore, i'm told, because it's such a nothing disease--again, once neutered, the urge to bite as deeply as needed to transmit the disease disappears. (in the rare cases an FIV remains aggressive, pulling the canine teeth makes it impossible to inflict a deep enough bite, according to one vet source.) the sentence about the FIV not affecting their life expectancy is the key--as one of my vets said last time i was there (and she was NOT good about FIV before working with us, tho she now has house FIVs)--FIV cats die WITH FIV, not FROM it. and three important things to remember: FIV was recognized/defined/whatever as a particular, separate entity during the early years of the HIV time in human medicine, and given its unfortunate misleading name then. FeLV works in cats very much as HIV does in human it terms of how it's passed, how opportunistic infections affect positive cats etc--FIV is NOTHING like that. so it is the name that is the scariest aspect of the virus. most cats were NOT tested for FIV until recently, so many male cats who were ever outdoors unneutered would test positive. if you have a healthy cat who's been indoors since you adopted/rescued him, and he's tested during a workup for something else and comes up positive--well, think of how he's been up til then. he's been FIV+ the whole time, and nothing's changed! finally, remember that the current FIV vaccine, unlike the FeLV one, ensures that a vaccinated cat will test positive forever. ie, if a vaccinated cat gets out and is caught by animal control or taken in by a rescue/vet unfamiliar with FIV, the cat will test positive and likely be euthanized. i know that there are vets who vaccinate for FIV, but i have to admit that even BEFORE i worked at the sanctuary, i never met one.... if you DO have a cat vaccinated against FIV, then PLEASE microchip him with that info! there's research going on right now re: DNA (PCR) testing to differentiate the strain of FIV the cat is carrying--whether it's the vaccine-induced version or not, but so far the results are mixed--and what shelter/rescue is gonna do that, anyway? there's a new vaccine, a combo FIV/FeLV one, that i don't know anything about--so i don't know if that'll have the same problem. (the AAFP--feline practioners--website has an article about how/why the current FIV vaccine shows positive results....) anyway, THANK YOU GLENDA for giving us this info. (when you said natural vs IP--would that be "immunization produced?) MC
