How often do healthy kittens who test + for Panleuk stay healthy?
November 6, 2020 10:48 PM Subscribe
My adorable little apricot-and-white flame-pointed kitten is being cared for by her foster (who convinced me to adopt her and I am already in love). She went in to be spayed yesterday. After she got to the low-cost spay-neuter clinic, she pooped in the litter box in her enclosure and the vet tech thought her poop was too light in color (though actually it was darker than the food she's been eating), so they gave her a test for Panleukopenia, using the canine parvovirus snap test. It was positive!
Nobody in the foster's home has had Panleukopenia. My kitten appears to be totally healthy. They went ahead with the spay operation, and started her on antibiotics which are supportive, even though this is viral, because low white blood cells leaves them vulnerable.
She has been lively and affectionate and hungry since she got home, in between typical naps. Dealing with the drugs wearing off perfectly normally. She's two months old and weighs 3.5 pounds. She pooped a perfectly normal poop today (and there was much rejoicing). She has NO SYMPTOMS. She's been eating well and playing and cuddling and vigorously washing herself. No vomiting other than during the brief miserable carsick trip to the spay clinic yesterday.
She can't get in to see the regular vet until Monday. She'll get a repeat test and a blood count to see whether her white blood cells are low. If they're low, I guess she has it. Supportive care is all lined up. If they're not low....???
So I wonder if anyone out there has any experience, positive or negative, to hold us over until she sees the vet on Monday. We're all freaking out. Panleukopenia is so deadly for kittens! I've thought of some questions:
1. How likely does it seem like it might be that the test was simply wrong?
2. Do kittens ever get asymptomatic cases of Panleukopenia, in which the positive test is meaningful, but they never get sick and yet may be dangerous to other cats for a few weeks?
3. If she doesn't get sick, how soon can we bring her to my household that has two vaccinated two-year-old cats?
Or anything else you might have an opinion about, with respect to Panleukopenia in kittens. We'd be grateful if you might be able to talk us down--or give us bad news, whatever you have.
Nobody in the foster's home has had Panleukopenia. My kitten appears to be totally healthy. They went ahead with the spay operation, and started her on antibiotics which are supportive, even though this is viral, because low white blood cells leaves them vulnerable.
She has been lively and affectionate and hungry since she got home, in between typical naps. Dealing with the drugs wearing off perfectly normally. She's two months old and weighs 3.5 pounds. She pooped a perfectly normal poop today (and there was much rejoicing). She has NO SYMPTOMS. She's been eating well and playing and cuddling and vigorously washing herself. No vomiting other than during the brief miserable carsick trip to the spay clinic yesterday.
She can't get in to see the regular vet until Monday. She'll get a repeat test and a blood count to see whether her white blood cells are low. If they're low, I guess she has it. Supportive care is all lined up. If they're not low....???
So I wonder if anyone out there has any experience, positive or negative, to hold us over until she sees the vet on Monday. We're all freaking out. Panleukopenia is so deadly for kittens! I've thought of some questions:
1. How likely does it seem like it might be that the test was simply wrong?
2. Do kittens ever get asymptomatic cases of Panleukopenia, in which the positive test is meaningful, but they never get sick and yet may be dangerous to other cats for a few weeks?
3. If she doesn't get sick, how soon can we bring her to my household that has two vaccinated two-year-old cats?
Or anything else you might have an opinion about, with respect to Panleukopenia in kittens. We'd be grateful if you might be able to talk us down--or give us bad news, whatever you have.
Best answer: I used to volunteer in a PanLeuk medical ward at a shelter that took care of kittens (and some cats) with the disease. I have seen a lot pass away from it but we've had a lot of success treating it too. The older the kittens are, typically the better they do.
I'm not sure of the answer to question 1 because the answer to question 2 is yes: some kittens test positive but don't show symptoms or only have mild symptoms, though they can pass it on to other cats. It's very dependent on their immune systems and how hardy they are, in addition to the care they receive to mitigate vomiting/diarrhea and make sure they continue intaking calories to keep energy up. More than once in my experience, 1 or 2 kittens of a litter of 5 would be fine or just have mild diarrhea while the others worsened and weakened. A 2-month old kitten has a better shot than a younger kitten because their immune system is already a bit stronger.
Typically adult cats aren't affected as hard by the disease (I have seen it in a couple of cases but it's likely that something else was at play with them too, health-wise.) To the best of my knowledge it's not high risk to have them in the same household with vaccinated adult kitties (we would send panleuk kittens to medical fosters in homes with vaccinated adult cats), but I'd keep them at least in separate rooms and clean well until your kitten gets a negative test, just in case. The virus can live up to a year on surfaces and we had strict cleaning protocols to kill it with timed applications of diluted bleach, but for us, panleuk fosters still were not allowed to foster PL negative kittens until they'd gone a year between litters of kittens, to make sure the virus didn't survive somewhere.
Obviously your vet will know best about all of this, when you're able to talk to them about it, but that's my experience. :)
Fingers crossed for you and your kitty!
posted by kittensyay at 11:03 AM on November 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure of the answer to question 1 because the answer to question 2 is yes: some kittens test positive but don't show symptoms or only have mild symptoms, though they can pass it on to other cats. It's very dependent on their immune systems and how hardy they are, in addition to the care they receive to mitigate vomiting/diarrhea and make sure they continue intaking calories to keep energy up. More than once in my experience, 1 or 2 kittens of a litter of 5 would be fine or just have mild diarrhea while the others worsened and weakened. A 2-month old kitten has a better shot than a younger kitten because their immune system is already a bit stronger.
Typically adult cats aren't affected as hard by the disease (I have seen it in a couple of cases but it's likely that something else was at play with them too, health-wise.) To the best of my knowledge it's not high risk to have them in the same household with vaccinated adult kitties (we would send panleuk kittens to medical fosters in homes with vaccinated adult cats), but I'd keep them at least in separate rooms and clean well until your kitten gets a negative test, just in case. The virus can live up to a year on surfaces and we had strict cleaning protocols to kill it with timed applications of diluted bleach, but for us, panleuk fosters still were not allowed to foster PL negative kittens until they'd gone a year between litters of kittens, to make sure the virus didn't survive somewhere.
Obviously your vet will know best about all of this, when you're able to talk to them about it, but that's my experience. :)
Fingers crossed for you and your kitty!
posted by kittensyay at 11:03 AM on November 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Follow-up: our kitty is FINE. The vet tested her and said she DOES NOT HAVE IT.
How did this happen? Well, there were some other oddities at the low-cost spay/neuter clinic. Most notably, our kitty was listed as weighing 3.5 pounds when she'd been only 2.4 a few days before, and she took hours longer to come out of the anesthesia than expected after her spay surgery, but her weight at the real vet's office on Monday was only 2.5 pounds. It suggests that maybe two different cats' records were mixed up. Thank goodness the other cat wasn't even heavier, or our cat might not have survived the anesthesia overdose.
Thanks so much for the information about panleuk, kittensyay. That was exactly what I wanted to know. And smorgasbord, thank you for telling us your story; I'm so sorry that happened.
posted by chromium at 11:35 AM on November 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
How did this happen? Well, there were some other oddities at the low-cost spay/neuter clinic. Most notably, our kitty was listed as weighing 3.5 pounds when she'd been only 2.4 a few days before, and she took hours longer to come out of the anesthesia than expected after her spay surgery, but her weight at the real vet's office on Monday was only 2.5 pounds. It suggests that maybe two different cats' records were mixed up. Thank goodness the other cat wasn't even heavier, or our cat might not have survived the anesthesia overdose.
Thanks so much for the information about panleuk, kittensyay. That was exactly what I wanted to know. And smorgasbord, thank you for telling us your story; I'm so sorry that happened.
posted by chromium at 11:35 AM on November 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm so happy to hear this great news!!! I hope you and your kitties enjoy many, many wonderful years together!
posted by smorgasbord at 8:53 AM on November 19, 2020
posted by smorgasbord at 8:53 AM on November 19, 2020
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I adopted two kittens with feline leukemia, which is more common but different as you know. I hope others can give you more specific advice but here's my general experience dealing with kittens with a terminal diagnosis. I also found out about their diagnosis during a vet's visit after I had fallen in love so there was no way I was returning them to be put to sleep. However, I vowed to put them down as soon as their suffering became too great. (And also too expensive but the two usually go hand-in-hand. A lot of minor things that healthy cats can recover from, sick cats can't, so it's not worth the pain or cost of extra treatments. Of course, others may feel differently and I respect their approaches.) I didn't have any other cats in the home, which may have affected my decision. That's a challenge for you, I know. If your home is big enough, could you keep them separate for now? Or even forever, if needed?
One kitty died at 10 months and the other just shy of 3 years after seeming super healthy till the end. (This matches the general age expectancy for the diagnosis.) Vet bills really added up because we had frequent checks. The second cat was mostly indoors but eventually occasionally played with neighborhood kitties from afar -- we really thought (hoped?) he'd maybe had a false diagnosis or something -- but I didn't adopt any more until he had passed as to decrease the risk to transmission. I knew they were probably die young so I made sure to enjoy the time we had together. I just wish I had had the first cat put down a few days sooner as to have avoided that bit of prolonged pain.
FWIW, while the claim of the foster home that no cats there have the illness is probably made with the best intentions, how can they really know unless they're testing all of their cats for everything, frequently? The same thing was said about my kittens but it just feels like BS now. I'm not blaming anyone because everyone is trying their best with limited resources but plenty of foster homes and even shelters don't always test for all the diseases in kittens due to age, a lack of funding, etc.
Whatever happens, I know you will love your kitten lots and enjoy your time together, be it long or short. I wish you the best of luck and please keep us updated! <3
posted by smorgasbord at 11:36 PM on November 6, 2020 [1 favorite]