Haemobartonellosis

[hamsterjill]

Anyone on this list familiar at all with Haemobart? (And yes, I've already googled anything and everything that I can find on it.)

We have a rescue kitty who the vet suspects has this disease, and I'm hoping to find someone who has had actual experience with a cat that had it. Our kitty is being treated and is responding reasonably well right now. I'm hoping to learn more about the process of the disease, the length of time for recovery, the real chance of recovery, etc.

Many thanks in advance.

[distantearlywarning]

1. We had a cat with hemobartonella.

We got this cat as an adult from the shelter, and we don't know how he got the disease.

He was diagnosed with it at age 3 - we found out he had it because he almost died of anemia after being put on steroids for an unrelated condition. He nearly died from it at that time - I spent 3 days and nights sitting up with him feeding and watering him by hand while he was so weak he couldn't get to the litterbox and then later convincing him to eat and drink by himself - but the antibiotics finally did the trick and he recovered.

He died at age 8 from something that 3 vets and $2500 worth of lab tests were unable to definitively identify. :-(

I am convinced that the hemobart was somehow related to the cause of or responsible for his death, but unfortunately we will never know for sure exactly what the problem was.

I can tell you that he was a fragile cat all his life. The hemobart really messed with his constitution. He was always the cat in the house that had allergies to everything, the one the fleas picked on, the one with the sensitive stomach, the one who got all the kitty colds, etc etc.

He had a pretty hard life, healthwise, but I never regretted working so hard to save him in the beginning, because he was such a great cat and we loved him fiercely. What I do regret is how hard his life was during the last month before he died. If I had to do it all over again, I would have spared him all the vet hospital stays and the force-feeding and the poking and prodding with needles and all of that. It did nothing for him except spoil the last few weeks we might have had together. :-(