I agree, a vet visit is advised. First, recheck your records. FIV is very different than Felv. You would prefer to be dealing with FIV. If it was felv then you may be in for a very rough road.
Rapid breathing can be from anemia, pain, fluid in the chest, heart failure, infection (like pneumonia), poisoning, acute hemorrhage into the chest cavity or sac surrounding the heart, acute issues secondary to heartworm, and others. I suppose to get the most bang for your buck, have the vet look at a blood smear (look for things like bartonella infection), get a cbc (also from blood), retest for felv, and if they hear something strange when listening to his lungs, a chest x-ray. That's still a fairly substantial cost. Just rapid breathing, anorexia, and lethargy are nonspecific findings so it's hard to narrow down the pathology without further testing. Cats often stop eating when they don't feel well. Any other symptoms like diarrhea, throwing up, yellow color to the skin of the ears or gums, paleness of the gums or pads of their feet (usually they are nice and pink), problems with urination, seizure activity, sneezing, coughing, fluid drainage from anywhere, indications of trauma like dog bite, scratch, any possibility of ingesting something toxic to the cat? I really hope it is anything but issues with felv. If he really is felv+ one of the most common issues is anemia usually secondary to a bartonella infection or bone marrow failure. A cbc and peripheral smear should tell you this. It can be treated but often indicates a decline in your cat's immune system - which is what felv attacks. My prayers are with you and your cat. I hope it turns out to be something easy to treat. Jenny I wouldn't feed a cat, dog food. They can have problems with that. A little is alright but I wouldn't do it exclusively. On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Rashel Mereness <rash...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi - I'm new and have been reading the threads but I don't seen anything > that addresses my situation. We have an 8 month old kitty that tested > positive for FIV (or was it FELV?) at a young age, and we plan to get him > retested. He has been healthy, playful and had a great appetite. A few > weeks ago, however, he started eating less and less of his kibble, which we > attributed to him wanting only the wet food we were giving to the dog. So > we kept mixing a little into his kibble but he was eating less but was > otherwise fine. Then we went away over the weekend and came back to find > him very lethargic and breathing very heavy - not making a lot of noise > with the breathing, but we can see his lungs expanding and contracting a > great deal and very quickly. He won't eat, except he ate some of his > favorite treats. We had someone (who he doesn't know) staying at our house > Friday and then a person (who he knows) stopping in on Saturday and Sunday. > They said he didn't eat much. No mucous, no sneezing. Sound like anything > you have experienced? > > > > _______________________________________________ > Felvtalk mailing list > Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org > http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org > >
_______________________________________________ Felvtalk mailing list Felvtalk@felineleukemia.org http://felineleukemia.org/mailman/listinfo/felvtalk_felineleukemia.org
