Hello! About two weeks ago we adopted a 1 yr old cat from an adoption shelter. We have a 6 yr old resident cat and my vet suggested we was likely suffering from some loneliness and under stimulation, so we decided to get him a friend.
The adoption counselor said new kitty was from a “hoarding situation with too many cats.” He was given all core vaccines, neutered, and was living in a cage for a about a week before we adopted him. He is extremely friendly and outgoing, always purring when we are in the room. Unless he’s in a cage or carrier, then he gets really nervous.
He tested negative for Felv/FIV at the shelter on their Witness test. Three days later I took him to my vet to have general bloodwork, parasite test, and exam. Bloodwork came back showing slightly low white blood cell counts and moderately low neutrophils. And the lab-run ELISA test showed a positive result to FIV. *This was not a SNAP test and was conducted at IDEXX lab*
**I understand that FIV + and - cats can coexist in the same home without transmission. However, while fixed, both cats are active males and I live in a small apartment and I worry about fighting. My resident cat has also been through a lot medically and while he was recently given a clean bill of health, he is still a bit underweight and slowly recovering from a nasty case of SIBO. Therefore, I do not want risk the transmission. I also do not want to bring him back to the shelter so he is hanging in his own room with everything he needs. I have a wonderful women who has had FIV cats in the past on standby willing to take him. This is not the focus of this post but wanted to include this as a disclaimer**
Before I give him to a potential FIV+ home, my vet suggested we retest and he tested negative on an IDEXX snap test, conducted at my vet. This was one week after the lab test.
We called IDEXX and sent more blood in but have to wait about 2 weeks before we get any information on results and why the discrepancy occurred. I’m assuming they are conducting a PCR test.
My questions are; how common are false positives and negatives seen in practice? Could this be an early infection that the SNAP tests are not able to detect? Are lab conducted ELISA tests more sensitive than SNAP ELISA tests? What else could be causing the low WBC and neutrophil levels? Could a different virus be triggering a positive result?
He seems happy, very loving, and active aside from five days ago I fed him Weruva fish wet food that gave him horrible diarrhea for two days and he wasn’t eating much for about a day. He was seen by the vet the following day (at the retest) and we sent out more poop but was negative for all parasites. His stools are very slowly getting better on Hills GI Biome and S. Boulardii supplement. This is the only clinical symptom I have seen in him.
TLDR: 1 year old adopted cat tested negative twice on ELISA snap tests, positive on lab run ELISA test. Waiting for PCR test to come back. Also low WBC and neutrophils in addition to a bout of diarrhea. Why this is happening? What could be going on?
Thank you for reading this and offering any insight you may have!!! I appreciate it!!