Hemabartonella

[cybeeb]

Hemabartonella is a disease where a flea bites your cat and introduces a parasite into your cats bloodstream. The parasite latches onto a red blood cell and sucks it dry. Then he floats down the bloodstream and latches onto the next red blood cell and does the same. This goes on till you notice the cat is sick and take them to the vet. They can be treated with anitbiotics if caught soon enough. Your vet can do a blood test to see what percentage of red blood cells are destroyed.
We have had multiple cats in our house for many years and NEVER had a flea problem. We have one dog who goes in and out and he is treated with frontline plus.
In the last month we have had two cats diagnosed with hemobartonella. One responded to antibiotics and is now ok. The other baby died from this terrible parasite.
We have treated all the cats in our house with frontline now but if we had known about hemabartonella we would have treated them all along. We will now treat all cats every month.
Please be aware of the terrible health risk fleas are to a cat.
Hope this prevents somebody else from losing a baby.

[Mags]

Thank you for this useful information..

[smudgley]

Description:
Feline haemobartonellosis is caused by a tiny, microscopic protozoal parasite Haemobartonella felis, which attacks the cat's red blood cells within the circulation. The damaged cells may die leading to anaemia. Mycoplasma haemofelis can be transmitted from female cats with clinical disease to their newborn offspring in the absence of arthropod vectors. The severity of disease produced by Mycoplasma haemofelis varies from cats that are mildly anaemic and without clinical signs, to cats that are markedly depressed and die as a result of severe anaemia. The most common clinical signs in ill cats are depression, weakness, anorexia, weight loss and paleness of mucous membrane. Studies have estimated the prevalence of this parasite in the feline population to vary from 0.9 to 28%.
Diagnosis:
Mycoplasma haemofelis has not been successfully grown in agar or cell cultures. The readily available method for diagnosis Mycoplasma haemofelis infection in cats is microscopic identification of organisms attached to the surfaces of erythrocytes in Wright-Giemsa-stained peripheral blood smears. Recently, a PCR test has been developed to detect Mycoplasma haemofelis in blood of infected cats. Using PCR analysis, it is possible to detect the pathogen in blood samples obtained from cats during peak parasitemia, during most of the carrier phase, and after challenge with immunosuppressive drugs. Positive result confirms infection.

[cybeeb]

Thanks for the information. Am definitely interested in learning more about this. Until our cat was diagnosed two weeks ago I had never heard about this disease. Our cats are always indoors and we have one little dog who goes in and out. He is treated with frontline plus. We have never treated the cats because we have never seen any fleas on them. We have several solid white cats and they are the easiest to check. We went from no fleas in the house to two of the cats being diagnosed with this.
I am very grateful for all information. We do worry about it spreading among our cat population. We have treated all cats with frontline plus.

[dandysmom]

I'm sorry to hear you lost one due to this; I had never heard of the disease before. Thanks for posting the information.

[smudgley]

I'd never heard of it until you mentioned it a couple of days ago & I've been reading about it. It's very interesting reading. I just cut / pasted that info from the internet.

[Grete]

Wow I'd never heard of it before! I'm guessing the poor baby that died's age was against them as it all happens so much faster in small ones Will certainly bear it in mind for the future!

[kado]

Thanks i couldnt think of its propery name. My first cat i had only for 10days and the other 4 wks. They where too young to leave there mummy, the vet said the first one was only 6 wks when i took him. These where the first kittens i had and it took me nearly 4 years to get kittens again because i couldnt bear to loose them.

[cybeeb]

Our first baby that was diagnosed was only one. But the one that died from it was just three. The one year old, Captain Jack, is a pretty good sized cat. Nosey, the one who died from it was only about a 6 pound cat. I had never heard of this before but I sure have been reading a lot about it lately.
It's amazing that when you have 26 cats in the house and you lose one how empty the house really is.

[dandysmom]

Leaves a cat-sized hole in the heart, doesn't it ........