Infection of Unknown Origin?

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Buffy-&-Cindee

Buffy-&-Cindee

Member Since 2014
Has anyone here experienced the "infection of unknown origin"? Buffy was doing really well, then wham numbers started going up. I tried increasing the dosage, all the usual stuff, nothing worked. I took her to the vet and she got a clean bill of health, no bladder infection, teeth in good shape, no glucose in urine (although her number were in the 400s WBC normal.

Vet put her on Clavamox and voila! down the numbers came...that is until 4 or 5 days after she was done with them, they started up again. She went on another 10 days of Clavamox and the exact same thing happened. So, the vet changed to Baytril. Mistake....her numbers never went down. She's just about done with her third round of Clavamox and if it goes the same way as it did the last time, 4-5 days after she's off the antibiotics, her numbers will start climbing again.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Cindee
 
How long was each course of antibiotics? It may take longer courses.
Have x-rays ruled out bladder stones, which can harbor bacteria?
 
We had this with Smokey. When we put her on Orbax everything went better, when we stopped it everything got worse. Did they look at urine in addition to doing the bloodwork? Smokey had blood in her urine too and they suspected some deep kidney infection.
 
Unless she has some other sign of infection, I'd be hesitant to continue with multiple courses of antibiotics. This can be hard on the kidneys, and can lead to bacterial resistance if you don't get a culture and sensitivity and know what the bacteria is sensitive to.

Amoxicillian is a non-specific broad spectrum antibiotic. It kills a wide variety of bacteria. What you may be seeing is that when you are on the Clavamox, is that it's disrupting her gut flora leading to a decrease in nutrient absorption or decrease in inflammatory bacteria. When she's off the antibiotic, the flora returns, as does the increased blood sugar. A probiotic supplement might be of help, especially if her GI tract is colonized with bacteria that is causing inflammation which can lead to BS spikes.
 
BJM said:
How long was each course of antibiotics? It may take longer courses.
Have x-rays ruled out bladder stones, which can harbor bacteria?
Click to expand...
Each course was 10 days. This one she's on is going to be a total of 20 days. The vet said he may increase it to a total of 30 days. If that doesn't do the trick, I'm not sure what his next move is. Fingers crossed that this works. As for Buffy, outwardly she's fine. Zero symptoms of infection or diabetes. It's really strange especially with her numbers being so consistently high.

No evidence of bladder stones. She had a cultured UA that came back negative for anything...perfectly normal. She's probably not a likely candidate for stones as she always been a canned food cat. I had a cat with bladder stones that had to have surgery because of them. I learned then, no dry food. I even add a bit more water to all my cat's food. Since I've been doing that, none of them have had any bladder or kidney issues. That's been 15 years now.
 
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Meya14 said:
Unless she has some other sign of infection, I'd be hesitant to continue with multiple courses of antibiotics. This can be hard on the kidneys, and can lead to bacterial resistance if you don't get a culture and sensitivity and know what the bacteria is sensitive to.

Amoxicillian is a non-specific broad spectrum antibiotic. It kills a wide variety of bacteria. What you may be seeing is that when you are on the Clavamox, is that it's disrupting her gut flora leading to a decrease in nutrient absorption or decrease in inflammatory bacteria. When she's off the antibiotic, the flora returns, as does the increased blood sugar. A probiotic supplement might be of help, especially if her GI tract is colonized with bacteria that is causing inflammation which can lead to BS spikes.
Click to expand...
I'll talk to the vet about this. It surely seems to make sense. Thank you.
 
Also, this last course didn't seem to change blood sugars at all. Not every rise in sugar is due to infection. It's good to rule out, but without further evidence of infection, it's dangerous to be on so much antibiotics.

Other things to consider as well:
Glucose toxicity
Dehydration (does she have kidney disease)
Pancreatitis
Hyperthyroidism
Not enough insulin (insulin needs can change for no good reason too)
 
Meya14 said:
Also, this last course didn't seem to change blood sugars at all. Not every rise in sugar is due to infection. It's good to rule out, but without further evidence of infection, it's dangerous to be on so much antibiotics.

Other things to consider as well:
Glucose toxicity
Dehydration (does she have kidney disease)
Pancreatitis
Hyperthyroidism
Not enough insulin (insulin needs can change for no good reason too)
Click to expand...
When she was on the Baytril, her numbers never came down. With the Clavamox , on her last course, the numbers didn't drop until day 7.
She had a full battery of blood work and all was normal, with the exception of something to do with her white blood cells (sorry I didn't get a copy of those results so I don't know exactly what that test is) but the vet said what that result indicated is that the white blood cells were slightly enlarged but with her white blood count being normal, the larger cells indicate that something is brewing, just not enough to show in her white blood count. That's why he started her on the antibiotics.

She has no symptoms of anything...not even diabetes which we know she has. To look at her and observer her behavior, you wouldn't think there's a thing wrong with her. Initially the vet felt that her dosage was relatively low but wanted to keep her where she's been until we saw what the antibiotics did. She's certainly been on them long enough now especially given that she didn't have a raging infection. I'll see what the vet thinks as far as an increase now. A dosage increase seems to be in order.
 
Generally, a vet will run a standard lab panel, usually a CBC and chem panel. For hyperthyroidism, there is a separate test, which isn't in the general blood work, the vet has to know to test for it or you have to ask. I'm not sure about the pancreatitis. There should be a lipase level on the chem panel but I think there is a more specific test that has to be run. The problem is "the blood work is fine" only means the blood work they chose to run.

For white blood cells, if they are elevated or have abnormal cells, this can indicate infection or an inflammatory process. WBC can increase with pancreatitis.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure they did just a the usual CBC an chem panel because of the lack of any symptoms. She has no symptoms of pancreatitis but if those numbers don't start coming down with a dose increase, I'll be taking her back to be tested for everything and anything. If nothing else, it will make me feel better if all of these things that it "could be" are ruled out for sure.
 
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