Lupus, experiences, outcomes?

[Rascalmyshadow]

Poor Astro has been back at the vets again, he now has ulceration around the anal mucus membranes, its presenting exactly the same as his eyes, he's also drinking more than usual something we've noticed over the last 12 months and he started to limp on a front leg a few days ago, that has now settled with a few days of Metacam.

Due to all of the above the vet is suspecting he may have lupus, we have started him on a course of antibiotics and cortisone hopefully that will get it under control, he'll probably end up staying on cortisone for the rest of his life.

If it doesn't work we are looking at blood tests and biopsies.

 

Does anyone have any experience with lupus, any information would be a huge help it's something I have never dealt with.

[minxy]

Kyojin got diagnosed with discoid lupus almost two years ago now. He used to be on tons of medication but now he doesn't take any tablets, we just wash him every so often with a special wash from the vets. Now that it's cooler here it isn't really a problem for him, it's normally worse in summer and all of his hair falls out again and he gets lots of sores etc, so if we have to, we just give him another course of the prednisone until it's under control again. We just try and keep him out of the sun as much as possible. He used to be indoors whenever he wanted, but once he get lupus that was no longer an option as our floors were being covered with thousands of dead skin cells and huge chunks of hair. It was pretty revolting so unfortunately he just has to live under the patio now. 

 

When his sores are particularly bad we have to be really careful to check his ears as they often get blocked and he becomes temporarily deaf until we clean them out again. We had to do blood tests and biopsies and have a specialist check everything out to confirm his diagnosis. 

 

[Simply Grand]

My best friend's cat has lupus. She had various different flare ups around her ears and eyes then got really sick and needed blood transfusions which was when eventually lupus was diagnosed with blood tests at a specialist vet. She went on cortisone, initially at quite a high dose then it was gradually reduced as her symptoms settled down. She had several blood tests to monitor her over a month or two on the cortisone them eventually went off it. She has been ok for the last few months with no meds, but my friend knows it will flare up again at some stage and if it's treatable again they'll do more cortisone and continue like that until it gets to the point where either her body can't handle the cortisone or the lupus attacks vital organs and causes her to suffer too much

 

I'm sorry it seems Astro has it, it has been a bit of a stressful (and expensive) process for my friend but at the moment she has her happy, healthy cat back so it's not all bad news