Wednesday, January 11, 2012

I need some advice on CRF -- Erythropoietin

My best friend has an elderly cat who was diagnosed with CRF some time ago. He has been maintaining pretty well, but it appears that he has gotten to a point where the Vet is advising that his Mom start him on a regimen of Erthropoietin. His red blood count on his most current test went from 19 to 18, so he has anemia due to the CRF. Has anyone had any experience with Epogen (which is the drug)??? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

8 comments:

  1. Our Teri said she could help your friend with advise, since she is a vet nurse at an all cat hospital (we think you already knew that, but we like to brag about her!).

    If at all possible, it would be nice to have a copy of this old kitty's lab results to give her a more complete picture...but she said that the normal Hematocrit for a cat is between 29-48 and the vet she works for usually starts Procrit if it goes below 26. At 18, this old kitty is going to be 'oxygen starved' and therefore not very active probably. Yes, she should start the Procrit, and depending on her lab results, may need some other meds, too. In the rare case, cats can have an adverse reaction to Procrit, but at least in the many cats that are treated with it where Teri works, that has never happened, but you might read about it and Teri wanted you to know her experience at least.

    Have your friend watch the Cornell Veterinary School video on kidney disease in cats. It is written for cat owners in simple language pretty much and it will explain to your friend a lot about kidney disease and it's ramifications--anemia, high blood pressure, stomach ulcers and urinary tract infections. Here is the link:

    partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/kidney-disease

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  2. Ya done got the best advice ever, Teri rocks!

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  3. YAY for Teri. I've heard how good she is and we're so lucky to have her on the Blogosphere.

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  4. I love it when Teri replies to posts like this - I always learn something!

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  5. That information from Teri is terrific!

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  6. Teri has given you excellent advice. We know that epogen is typical treatment for CRF kitties that are anemic.

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  7. I'm glad someone knew some thing about this, we haven't had any experience with it.

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  8. It looks like Teri gave some good advice. I have one kitty with CRF but he's not anemic and has been doing well for the year and a half since he was diagnosed. We had a rescue kitty who also had CRF. The best thing for me was finding two Yahoo Groups: Feline-CRF-Support and Feline_Anemia. There are some very knowledgeable, experienced people on these lists. This is a wonderful, fact-filled site: http://www.felinecrf.org/anaemia.htm

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