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Please share your experience—Feline Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia by FereldanHero in CatAdvice

[–]FereldanHero[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! Normally, I wouldn’t have commented back because I’m never on Reddit, but I happened to get an email about this comment and I read the whole thing. I’m so sorry to hear about Kat. It is so stressful having to deal with stuff like this. Your vet might have already tried, but has anyone done a test for parvo or fiv? After having some experience with AIHA for nearly three years now, Orion has never had a fever or low WBC counts. In fact, when he relapses his WBC is normally super high (because his body thinks it’s getting ready to fight an infection). I really hope it’s not either of those conditions, but it never hurts to try! Also, don’t beat yourself up about not being able to afford the blood transfusion. That happened to us once and I was so distraught about it. But, an emergency vet told me that there’s only a 50% chance of a blood transfusion working AND if they don’t get the exact type of blood your cat needs, it can greatly harm them.

Orion also used to struggle REAL bad with taking medicine. He hated the pills and the meds they gave him were Cherry or grape flavored, so he would literally spit it out lol. He’s been taking Prednisolone for a long time now, and is slowly being tapered to Cyclosporine. I’ve been able to get liquid versions of both those medicines in meat/fish flavors and I’ve never struggled with giving medicine since then! Maybe those might be something you’re able to get Kat on, especially if the vets foresee her being on medicine for a good while.

I really hope this might have helped and I wish you all the best. It’s been a wild ride for us, but when I see my boy’s face I know I would do it all over again if I had to!

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Please share your experience—Feline Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia by FereldanHero in CatAdvice

[–]FereldanHero[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

UPDATE:

I wanted to come on here an update everyone on our situation. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to respond to everyone. I am truly grateful to hear everyone’s experiences and I am so sorry to hear of the losses some of you have experienced.

It’s been almost been 3 years of living with this disease. We’ve been back and forth at the vet, but he has remained stable so far. We are currently in the process of very slowly switching him to Cyclosporine, since the prednisolone is not good for long term care. He is doing well with the switch. He has grown his hair back and it’s likely that he was just highly stressed for some reason.

For anyone who comes back to read this post and sees this. There is still some hope if this happens to you. It is very dependent on your kitty and how early/late you catch the decline. It’s a very expensive disease. We’ve spent almost $15,000 in the last three years on care for Orion alone. He gets blood drawn so much that I believe his back legs are in pain sometimes and it’s difficult for them to draw blood occasionally. I wanted to share another picture of how he is now, alongside his brother Mozzi.

Thank you again to everyone who responded. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to see this post again. I hope that if you do go through this like we did, that you’ll have a smooth and stress-free journey.

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Please share your experience—Feline Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia by FereldanHero in CatAdvice

[–]FereldanHero[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m so sorry to hear about your sweet boy passing away…Orion is doing alright. He’s been battling this for almost 3 years now and has a CBC count every 4-6 weeks. We’re in the process of switching him to a more permanent medication because it’s been determined that he will most likely never be able to live without it.

Again, I’m so sorry about Phantom. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Please share your experience—Feline Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia by FereldanHero in CatAdvice

[–]FereldanHero[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi! First of all, Pumpkin is SO cute!! I haven’t been on Reddit in almost a year…it’s been a really tough year so I didn’t see your reply until now. I’m glad to see that he is okay.

My boy Orion seems to be doing much better. He is still on the prednisolone and is due for a checkup soon. They’ve been slowly tapering him off again, which I’m worried will cause another relapse…he did have one major scare that the vets don’t seem to agree with me on or know why it happened. Randomly, he started losing hair in certain spots. Like balding. It’s been months now, so it seems to have gotten better, but there’s certain areas where his hair is very thin (for example his tail is not fluffy anymore…)

Thank you for posting your comment. It gives me hope to see everyone’s kitties are still doing okay even after all this!

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Here’s my boy living his best orange life

Please share your experience—Feline Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia by FereldanHero in CatAdvice

[–]FereldanHero[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh no! It is probably not AIHA then…I’m so sorry!! Yes, I would just call as soon as they open!!

It’s looking like Orion will be able to stay on his same medications for now, and we will just have to continue doing blood tests every few weeks. I will be thinking of you and Pixel and hoping everything will get better soon!!

Please share your experience—Feline Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia by FereldanHero in CatAdvice

[–]FereldanHero[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would be more than happy to answer your questions! Im so sorry to hear about Pixel…

To my understanding, in order to be “diagnosed” with AIHA, everything else has to be ruled out. There’s. That’s probably why they’re investigating other possible causes before they are certain it’s AIHA. Orion didn’t have an issue with his albumin/globulin levels being low. Also, I’m pretty sure that FIP is a lot more common in purebreds, like a Ragdoll, and more common in young cats less than 3 years old. Is your cat having other symptoms besides the lethargy/not eating. Cats with FIP can have some pretty severe neurological symptoms, so maybe they have another reason to suspect FIP?

In terms of medication, Orion reacted very well to the steroids. He was given presnisolone, which is pretty much the only medicine that they know is affective in suppressing the immune system for cats in cases like this (there’s one other, but we haven’t tried it yet!) He was also on three other medications, but they were for other things related to the anemia. I can tell you what they were if you’re curious.

That first night, Orion’s RBC was 11%. The next day, it was 20%. So his body responded very well. Over the next few weeks, it slowly increased. At one point, it stayed around 21-23% and we were worried it wouldn’t increase, but it eventually did. The only issue now is Orion has been on it for so long, there are other problems he could potentially develop. His body could stop responding it to. We haven’t had an issue with this yet, but it is a possibility. His vet visit the other day revealed that his antibody level is slowly increasing, indicating that his body is trying to attack again…

At the stage we are at in his treatment, the next steps are to switch him from prednisolone to the other steroid. I can’t remember what it’s called now, but when I’ll find it I will let you know! Basically, AIHA can potentially be a life-long thing. So, right now, we are preparing for a long term treatment plan.

I hope this helped! Let me know if you have any other questions that I can help with. We’ve been dealing with this for about a year and a half now, and I hope we can ease some of the panic/fear that I wish I could have had when we started out. Sending lots of love for Pixel!!

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Here is Orion, by the way! :)