? Civvie CBC panel off

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AlphaCat

AlphaCat

Member Since 2017
It's been a couple of months since anything drastic has happened so what do we do? Go make worries, of course...
We decided now might be a good time to take our oldest in for a dental.
Mimi is 11 and almost always healthy. She hasn't been into the vet for many years (over 5). When she was a baby she had elevated liver enzymes so they made her do two weeks of prescription food and then retest before they would put her under anesthesia for her spay. All worked out, but we wanted to make sure to let the doctor know before the pre-dental blood work.
Her CBC came back with low white blood cell count and low platelet count. (I did not take home the labs.)
She has to do 2 weeks of the antibiotic Doxycycline and be retested, before we schedule the dental.

She has not exhibited any signs of illness. Any ideas why her WBC and platelets might be low?
I'm just curious of what it could be. (If anything was definitive, I'm sure the vet would have informed us.)
Any thoughts?
 
Ann & Scatcats said:
How low are they? How much under the reference range?


It's good that you have it re-tested.
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I'm not sure. I didn't ask for a copy of the report.
This particular cat is rather problem free, so I am currently just trusting the vet, and expecting the numbers to come back up to normal with the antibiotics.
I just got curious of possibilities when we got home.
More in depth will come in two weeks if she doesn't improve as expected.
 
It would be interesting to see the labs. I rarely see doxycycline given for elevated WBCs. Also....it’s pretty common for platelets to be low depending on whether the way the blood was drawn caused clumping. That’s not unusual and the lab report will state if there was clumping.
 
Marje and Gracie said:
It would be interesting to see the labs. I rarely see doxycycline given for elevated WBCs. Also....it’s pretty common for platelets to be low depending on whether the way the blood was drawn caused clumping. That’s not unusual and the lab report will state if there was clumping.
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We were told the white blood cells were low (not elevated).
I'll get a copy of the labs when we go back. (Actually 2 lab reports then, the first one with the low readings and the newer ones post antibiotics.)
 
We've had a fun antibiotic update (sarcasm).

Day 2 she stopped wanting to eat per normal. Not avoiding eating, just reluctant.
Then day 3 into the Doxycycline she threw up all over the bedroom 30 minutes after getting her medicine dose.

I called the vet and they had me pick up famotidine to give her each day to help with the stomach upset the Doxycycline causes. Her appetite was back the next day just fine, so I do think it was just the meds causing stomach upset.
Last night she had 2 doses of famotidine (so far, not at once) so we began the Doxycycline again. She held it all down last night, we'll see how we do tonight.

I'll update if any new stuff happens or when we get the labs.
Thanks, y'all!
 
AlphaCat said:
We've had a fun antibiotic update (sarcasm).

Day 2 she stopped wanting to eat per normal. Not avoiding eating, just reluctant.
Then day 3 into the Doxycycline she threw up all over the bedroom 30 minutes after getting her medicine dose.

I called the vet and they had me pick up famotidine to give her each day to help with the stomach upset the Doxycycline causes. Her appetite was back the next day just fine, so I do think it was just the meds causing stomach upset.
Last night she had 2 doses of famotidine (so far, not at once) so we began the Doxycycline again. She held it all down last night, we'll see how we do tonight.

I'll update if any new stuff happens or when we get the labs.
Thanks, y'all!
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Usually cerenia (also dosed once a day) or ondansetron (can be dosed 3-4 times a day) are better choices for nausea and vomiting. Has she been vaccinated against panleukopenia? Has she been tested for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus?

Doxycycline is just a weird antibiotic for a vet to choose to use for low white blood count. It’s a very powerful antibiotic that often makes cats sick and it’s typically used for bacterial infections associated with ticks, heart worm, or feline infectious anemia. While low WBCs can be caused by bacterial infections, it’s often more caused by viral infections. I would have asked why a more broad spectrum antibiotic like clavamox was not used. While it still can make some cats sick, doxycycline is rather a “big gun” kind of a/b especially if they aren’t sure what is causing the low WBCs.
 
Marje and Gracie said:
Usually cerenia (also dosed once a day) or ondansetron (can be dosed 3-4 times a day) are better choices for nausea and vomiting. Has she been vaccinated against panleukopenia? Has she been tested for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus?

Doxycycline is just a weird antibiotic for a vet to choose to use for low white blood count. It’s a very powerful antibiotic that often makes cats sick and it’s typically used for bacterial infections associated with ticks, heart worm, or feline infectious anemia. While low WBCs can be caused by bacterial infections, it’s often more caused by viral infections. I would have asked why a more broad spectrum antibiotic like clavamox was not used. While it still can make some cats sick, doxycycline is rather a “big gun” kind of a/b especially if they aren’t sure what is causing the low WBCs.
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She has been tested for feline leukemia when we got her as a baby. She was negative. She got her full vaccinations as a kitten, but she has not been back to the vet since her last kitten vaccination and spay.

This whole Doxycycline cycle has been a mess for her and us humans. I will ask your questions when we go back on the 6th. She is 1.5 days from being done with the meds, but I won't do Doxycycline again unless it's necessary. When I called after her first throwing up issue I asked if we should switch antibiotics. (I only spoke with the tech, not the doc.) But the doc seemed adamant on staying on the Doxycycline, since instead of calling in clavamox (which has been done before for a different animal).

I got the impression on the first day from the body language (which is what even made me curious in the first place) that whatever is going on with her blood work has the potential to be very bad (I went to cancer). When I asked directly they answered honestly but felt like they were trying not to be alarming. They said, "it could be that she could have just fought off some sort of cold/infection without showing symptoms that depleated her stores", but they didn't go further into speculation with me.

Mimi hasn't been taking the famotidine well either. If I can get her to eat before the famotidine it tends to stay down. 2 more days... then we retest next week, and I'll ask more questions and get copies of the blood work. But hopefully by then, everything is better and there wasn't anything to be worried about.

Thanks for thinking this through with me even though I don't have a lot of info.
 
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