womzilla | Quick Courageous update

It's been over a year since she was diagnosed with FIV, a feline disease very similar to human AIDS, and nearly 18 months since she first exhibited symptoms--severe gingivitis, severe enough to prevent her from eating. So far, this has remained the only symptom she has expressed.

In late January, we changed her treatment; rather than the every-three-weeks steroid injections to a daily dose of two antibiotics and an oral steroid. (As noted earlier, we discovered that she will readily eat these pills crumbled over her food.) This worked very well until about a week ago, when she slowed and then stopped eating solid food, and was even somewhat reluctant to drink her milk. (Again as noted, this is "cat milk", a commerically produced cat treat which is lactose-free and taurine-enriched; even when she won't eat solid food, she'll drink the milk.)

Consultation with the vet lead us to increase her steroid dose. Initially, she was received one pill twice a day, then tapered down to half a pill twice a day, then to half a pill once a day. Apparently, this maintenance dose was just a bit too low, so we wanted to give her a "pulse"--three days back at the two-a-day level, then three days at one-a-day, then back to the half-a-day. Well and good, in theory.

In practice, because she wasn't eating, it was hard to get her pills into her. The pills are apparently distasteful enough that dissolving an entire pill in her standard dose of milk was unpleasant. After a couple of days of false starts, I managed to get a large enough serving of milk to mask the pill, and she got her first two-pill day four days ago. (Serving the milk at room temperature, rather than out of the fridge, helped a lot, too.) Within a day, she was recovered enough that she was wiling to eat some really stinky cat food (Fancy Feast Ocean Whitefish in Aspic) with her pills crumbled on it.

We expect that we'll have to "pulse" her about once a month from now on.

As of today, she seems back to her usual acceptable health; she ate less-stinky food with no problem, with her pills. But it was a very unpleasant week to get through.

With

nellorat out gardening, Courageous will be getting more Outside Time, which she seems to enjoy. So things are better, all around. Yay modern medicine!