Hi Ken...
I well know the experience of lying with a cat dying of Felv until they
passed and these posts are reawakening my own sadnesss and frustration
at being able to do so little so late with my own two FelV boys. It is
SO difficult for me to grasp the level of opposition to Winstrol on the
part of some vets... they are surely not worried about law suits and
they have a dying cat in front of them that they have NO definitive Tx
for....why NOT try Winstrol... It is beyond absurd... Unless there is
some kind of worry at being fingered for prescibing minute doses of an
anabolic steroid ( go ahead...take the dose you would give to a cat and
see the AMAZING effect is has... You'll feel nothing.... I can't help
but wonder if a lot of vets think if they wipe out the entire population
of FeLV cats that they will effectively wipe out the disease( an odd
consideration given that there will always BE a "patient Zero"... it
has to start somewhere and likely would again... Then again...anemia
is only one of the complications of this damnable disease ( though
admittedly the most critical... They are driving law abiding citizens
into illegal activity trying to find alternative sources of a hard to
obtain drug in order to save their cats lives.... it's f-in insane!!!
There is no end to the irrationality one can encounter when people who
are ' supposed ' to be schooled in scientific thinking decide that ,
that which stands before them....a winstrol treated cat in recovery from
anemia must not have had FeLV or there must be an alternative
explanation for the recovery.... Everything BUT trying Winstrol on
other cats with the disease and SEEING if it works ..run you own N of 5
or 6 mini experiment and see if you get a a positive result.... It's not
as though you are using alternative medicine on a cancer patient that
MIGHT have survived had they had proven Tx... they have NOTHING to
offer us that compares with Winstrol in the clutch ( though to date we
have only a very few cats who have survived as a result of taking
Winstrol and , to my mind, it has not established itself as the de-facto
drug for FeLV instigated anemia...but... it is certainly the most
hopeful in a field of paltry competitors..... We all want to live with
hope, and Winstrol gives us this.... So Ken, by all means, spread the
word, pester,implore,cajole your vet into trying it....but don't be too
terribly surprised when you have to figure out how to dismantle the
brick wall you are likely to encounter..
Bob
BTW.... Amani.. are you recommending prednisone or prednisolone with
the Doxy... many vets insist that prednisone is not useful for cats..
I couldn?t agree with you more, but I fear that the scientific/medical
evidence is thin because of the really stupid study done a decade ago,
which gave three cats massive doses of Winstrol (same levels as given
to sled dogs) and reported the resulting elevation of liver enzymes.
And then, of course, there is the unhelpful connection to the athletic
doping scandals. Studies looking into the effects of Winstrol are
therefore few and far between (though I have found a few). Moreover, a
physician friend of mine explained to me that once a drug is
off-patent (as Winstrol is) then the drug companies can make very
little money from it, and so they will not spend money to set up
clinical trials, and will instead push other related drugs that are
still covered by a patent, so they make more money on the sale of
those other drugs.
The problem is that, as far as I can determine to date, though there
are lots of anabolic steroids, Winstrol is the only one that seems to
have this effect on bone marrow to cause it to grow, create new cells,
regenerate, etc, which in turn causes the production of red cells,
white cells and platelets from the activated bone marrow. In addition,
Winstrol is considered to have very mild side effects in comparison to
other anabolic steroids. Winstrol is also found to be very quickly
effective. Most of those athletes who will speak about steroid use,
confirm that Winstrol is one of the most effective and safest of the
drugs (and remember that athletes who are using steroids use them at
hundreds if not thousands of times the recommended doses, and they
"stack" them will all sorts of other steroids).
I also found, with my own vets, that even with solid proof in front of
their own eyes (with cats condemned to death, showing an amazing
recovery), they will often look for other explanations other than that
it was the Winstrol. As I mentioned with my little Zander, after being
told by every vet I spoke with that there was nothing I could do and
Zander was going to die (and best to put him down immediately), and
being able to show serial blood results weekly which showed a clear
improvement from critical haematology values to normal results, at the
end of it all, I start hearing things like, "well maybe it was never
FeLV in the first place".
I agree that the way to start turning this around, for all of us who
have had good results or who may have a cat in the unenviable
situation of having little or no other options, is to speak with our
vets about Winstrol. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have now
used Winstrol, usually in combination with at least the prednisone
(with the doxycycline being added on in circumstances involving
something likely infectious), for a range of cat problems and have had
excellent results every time but once. One case was a 16 year old cat
with a nasal sarcoma (kept the sarcoma from causing severe facial
swelling, and kept my cat eating for another two years); one case was
a cat who came from a feral colony which I later found out had had FIV
rampaging through it and killing all the cats (and she came to me
EXTREMELY ill with a sky-high fever, tympanic abdomen and fluid around
her lungs - she survived when I thought there was no hope at all, and
she's still with me now); I have used it to avoid knee surgery for
Zander when he pulled his cruciate ligament; and am I currently using
it now to treat a spinal lesion in Pippin - a three-year old who gets
flair-ups of neurological problems which I tracked to a spinal lesion,
and when the lesion causes swelling, etc., the symptoms reappear. The
combination of prednisone and Winstrol appears to be the only thing
that reverses the effects of the lesion.
I think the Winstrol is seriously underutilized and cats respond very
well to it, in a number of circumstances. Obviously, it is not a
cure-all, and we've heard from other folks who've tried it and gotten
no appreciable results, so I am not suggesting it is a panacea by any
means. Further, I understand that FeLV is now thought to be caused by
at least four or five different types or strains of virus, and I
believe that this is the reason that some people get amazing results
and some people see nothing.
Hopefully, Marlene will get a good response, and it is very heartening
to hear that in Italy, the drug is commonly used to treat FeLV cats.
It was commonly used in North America as well, in the '80's and '90's,
until the stupid doping scandals (especially Ben Johnson's Olympic
gold medal being stripped) shone an ugly spotlight on it.
Amani
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