Cats and Life Extension

A woman asked on my facebook page, if cats were part of living longer! I guess it's because of my picture with my favorite cat ever, "Mama," appearing on the front cover of my first book with me. Cats are not required for life extension, but they sure can help. The woman said she would be willing to follow the life extension program, described in my book, but she would not get a cat! I guess that is just her loss. The rest of us love cats and are delighted to have them.
Pets do make people healthier and happier. Studies consistently show that people with a dog or a cat live, on average, several years longer. They also provide an emotional outlet for love and affection that a person may otherwise not be getting in life. I know I am happier having my cats. They give me so much love :) Thank you Bunny and Moe!
Dr. Doug Ikeler
http://www.ikelerbooks.com/
http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/
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Feline Stomatitis

Feline stomatitis is an inflammatory disease that causes severe tissue changes around the gums of the teeth and back of the mouth. The condition can occur at any age in cats and is only treatable with dental cleanings, tooth extraction, antiinflammatory drugs, and laser surgical reduction of the inflamed tissues.

The presenting complaints for cats with feline stomatitis include, growling, pawing at the mouth, drooling, pain and hissing when eating, yowling, and weight loss. Sometimes too the cat presents for not being able to close it's mouth because a tooth has become loose and is wedging the cat's mouth open. The physical exam is usually diagnostic as the characteristic tissue changes, called faucitis, from all the inflammation at the back of the mouth, is very obvious, as in the pictures above. Biopsy and histological analysis is not often done, but when it is, lymphocytic and plasmacytic cells dominate the cellular structures.

The cause of the disease is a combination of gingival immune reaction to the dental plaque, and quasi-autoimmune response to the actual dental tissues themselves. The cat is essentially allergic to it's own teeth, as evidenced by dental erosions at the sulcus line, and eventual tooth loss, if the condition is left untreated. It is worth noting here that cats have a very strange immune system and are plagued by various diseases where the immune system cells go rogue in the body and form tumors, like lymphomas, eosinophilic lesions like rodent ulcers in the lips, and other autoimmune type diseases like oral stomatitis. It has never ceased to amaze me how independently the immune system can function. To form tumors, cancers, and inflammatory responses to the bodies own healthy tissues, says the immune system may well have a mind of it's own.

Treatment of the disease is by client and veterinarian choice. The least destructive treatments include frequent dental cleanings, and oral predisone administration. More aggressive treatments include dental extraction and laser ablation of the affected and inflamed tissues. I have used all the methods listed here for treatment, but my approach is to use the gentle and conservative treatments unless more aggressive therapy is absolutely needed. Monthly injections of Depo-Medrol, a long-acting injectable version of prednisilone, and even gold injections work well to control chronic plasmacytic-lymphocytic gingivitis and stomatitis. The gold injections though, which are also used to treat chronic arthritis in people, come with some odd side effects like a general loosening of the cats connective tissues in it's joints and skin.

Feline stomatitis is only treated and not cured, though some vets tout that complete dental extraction of all the cat's teeth is a cure, since that does end the stomatitis response. Losing all the teeth, I would say is a treatment, because it is a permanent change to the normal anatomy, and though it ends the disease, it also ends the dentition.

Many Thanks go out to Jaya and her cat Gamma for their suggestion of this article.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

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Kissing Cats and Toxoplasmosis

People love their cats! So it's hard not to hug them and kiss them. This is normally not a problem, unless you're pregnant.

Toxoplasmosis is a protozoal parasite that is generally not harmful to healthy adults. Our immune system generates antibodies against it and anyone who has had cats their whole life, like me, probably has a strong immunity developed for this parasite. The trouble comes with immunodeficiency.

A pregnant woman has a lowered immune system. This is nature's way of preventing an abortion of the fetus, as it too is recognized as a foreign invader. The unborn child also has a very low immune response while it is in-utero, otherwise it would be in a constant state of inflammation.

The toxoplasmosis parasite takes advantage of these low states of immunity and can cause brain damage and internal organ damage in an unborn child. Certainly, this is not what someone wants for their new baby. It is actually a rare occurrence, with less than one in three thousand babies being affected by toxoplasmosis, but it is worth taking the easy precautions.

If you are a pregnant woman, or you are immunocompromised by HIV, AIDS, or immuno-suppressive drugs, then take these preventive steps: Let your spouse or someone else clean the cat box. Use rubber gloves, and a face mask, if you are the one who has to clean the litter box. And definitely don't kiss your cat. If you have had cats all your life, you are probably already immune to toxoplasmosis, but while pregnant, still be cautious.

My mother loved to kiss cats, as she was an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle, after her mother died in childbirth and her father was away as a major in the Army. She made her cats her friends in an environment where her much older guardians may not have given her enough love and attention. Even grown though, she loved to lay on the couch, with a favorite kitty hugged up close, her lips pressed close to their cheek. We all can admit the joys of holding and patting our kitties, and for the most part, it is never a problem. I'm sure the cats enjoy the affection too.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

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Niacin, Neurology, Lights Out, and Pledge Air Freshener

Cats are tough animals and have few medical problems in certain areas. Neurology is just such an area. During my entire veterinary career, I saw very few neurology cases in cats. Their nervous system is not plagued by many diseases, but a few interesting cases did arise.

Niacin deficiency is rare in any animal, especially in cats, though it can occur. I had a kitten come in who was holding his head down low, as though it was just hanging over, and as I hadn't seen this condition before, I had to call Colorado State University Veterinary College for a little advice.

I talked to Dr. Ingram who was the head of neurology there. He immediately knew the diagnosis and I started the kitten on a B Vitamin supplement, and it was better by the next day. The kitten got to go home with just a little vitamin powder to sprinkle on it's food and avoided any shots, blood tests, or surgery. Lucky kitten.

The most common neurological problem in cats in Distemper, also known as Feline Panleukopenia. The Distemper virus attacks the respiratory system and nervous system of cats who have never been vaccinated for it and, if they live through having the disease, they are left with a permanent state of the wobbles that makes it difficult for them to coordinate their walking. Actual destruction of the cerebellum occurs in cats with Distemper, and those neurons never regenerate.

When I was a boy, our neighbor, Natalie Marx, had two orange tabbies that got distemper and they both walked very awkwardly for the rest of their lives. She fondly named them after our vet who saved them, so they were called Tucker and Burr.

One other unusual neurological case I had was with a cat that had a lymphoma tumor in it's medulla oblongata. The cat just got progressively weaker and weaker. The diagnosis required a Cat Scan (no pun intended) to detect the tumor. Unfortunately, that kitty had to be euthanized.

So speaking of neurology, what would cause an entire staff of three veterinary technicians and one veterinarian to go without electricity for three days at a vet hospital? Well, if the lights went out, what would you do? Call the electric company? Check the breaker box? Call to the main hospital of the group to ask Dr. Ikeler what to do with no power? All the above are proper courses of action, none of which was done. It was me wondering why I couldn't download computer information from that location, three days later that prompted the simple act of me going over and checking the circuit breaker box and clicking it back on. Four adult women, one with a doctorate degree, couldn't figure this out on their own. Sound frustrating? It was.

How about at one of my other five Cat Hospitals where I went in to use the bathroom, and slid across the floor like it was a skating rink. I looked to see if the floor was wet, it wasn't, then I wondered why everything in the bathroom was greasy. I looked around and quickly noticed there was a can of Pledge furniture polish sitting on the back of the toilet, right where air freshener would normally be. The entire staff, and the doctor at that location, were spraying the pledge around in the bathroom after they used it, and none of the four of them knew Pledge isn't an air freshener. How many geniuses do you think worked at that veterinary hospital?

It was incidents like these that made me question human intelligence in general. One of my professors at Cornell University was Carl Sagan. He also questioned if humans were intelligent and was quite open and honest that he didn't think we were. He thought we might have moments of semi-intelligence, but basically a lot of what people did to themselves and the planet he thought was very dumb. It was a privilege to have had such a famous person be one of my college professors. I still feel honored today to have known him.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

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Medical Excellence and the Four Foot Tall Milkweed

An important life lesson I have learned is that when you think you have things going really well, think again. At The Cat Hospitals of Denver we really (okay, I really) strove for excellence in our delivery of medical care and customer service. Over the years, I saw that about one percent of my employees did too.

We had weekly meetings to teach our staff and doctors medical knowledge and excellence in customer service. A true "learning organization." Everyone got paid over-time to be at these three-hour long, Wednesday afternoon meetings, that were very fun and interesting. I even had some employees that could parrot back some of our key service axioms like, UA-Fecal-EAG, and "it's not customer service, it's customized service."

So with all this going on, I thought our staff members had a real grasp on doing an excellent job in taking care of the clients and patients. I even didn't feel it necessary to make weekly stops in at all my five Cat Hospitals to check up on the people working at them. Then one late summer afternoon, I had to deliver some special surgical instruments to my Lakewood Colorado office, and I was aghast at what I saw.

As I pulled up and parked in front of the hospital, I saw a client coming out the front door with her cat in a carrier, and she lifted her leg up high as she STRADDLED OVER a three to four foot tall milkweed right in the center of the front step. I was so embarrassed, I sat in my car until the client drove off. I went inside and asked who let a four foot tall milkweed grow right in the middle of the front steps.

Of course, no one knew, and it must have just grown up over night. After all, we had daily duty rosters that included sweeping the front steps and making sure there was no trash or debris around the entrance of the vet hospital. But I have to give them credit, because the duty rosters did not mention anything about pulling up milkweeds if they were growing right in the front step, where the clients walked in.

The even odder part, was that two of my supposed top people, let's call them Carol and Brent, were working at this hospital and were entirely responsible for it. They were let go soon thereafter, because the inside of the hospital was a pig-sty as well and those two employees had also worked it out that they were clocked in all the time and were rarely even there.

So it comes back to the lessons I learned from reading William Marriott Junior's book about his Marriott Hotel Chain. You have to check on everything yourself. Bill Marriott actually goes into his various hotels and checks under the beds, and behind the toilets, and under the sinks to make sure his hotels are actually being cared for to the standards that are the Marriott Brand. You would think the president of a multi-billion dollar Hotel conglomerate would have better things to do, and he does, but it is this single step that rattles the chains and keeps his well paid employees actually doing what they are paid for. I wish the world was a better place.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

Old Doctor Burr and Coster's Cascade of Criticism

During the eight years that I worked at Wilshire Animal Hospital in Santa Monica, California, I had a chance to tell my employer and friend, Dr. Ian Coster, about the first vet I ever worked for when I was younger. His name was Dr. Isaac Tucker Burr, and he had a very general country practice in Walpole, New Hampshire, and he was quite a character. Dr. Coster reminded me though, that I was just in my twenties and even though I liked to tell "Old Dr. Burr" stories, that someday too, people would be telling "Old Dr. Ikeler" stories. It probably is true, and I'm sure they're good stories.

The best stories though involved unique elements of Dr. Burr's personality. He was raised in Boston and went to Harvard for college, "just to be educated" as he would describe it. He then went to Cornell Veterinary College after his time in the military, after the second world war, and he told that the only reason the Germans were defeated was because they had ten times the power fighting against them, and still it was close!

My years with Dr. Burr were spent rambling through the countryside of New Hampshire delivering calves, testing for mastitis, splinting broken dog legs, and spaying and neutering a lot of cats and dogs. Dr. Burr had the most eloquent vocabulary, but he liked to swear and sometimes it came out so comically. During a Saint Bernard ovariohysterectomy (a dog spay) one time, a ligature slipped, spurting blood everywhere, and Dr. Burr yelled out, "Oh Jesus, Jesus," and then with a little reflection added, "I wish you were here", as though a little help from above was needed and appropriate at that time.

Dr. Burr also did not understand the modern form of the Learning Organization. Because I was a teenager and wanted to be a vet, he somehow assumed I knew everything there was to know about what to do in a veterinary hospital. Instruction was minimal and so I took it upon myself to know everything for how to be a great veterinary assistant. Self-taught, of course.

Dr. Coster was different. He was very much a teacher and, in reality, taught me how to be a great veterinarian. The twelve years of college I have attended only filled in the details. One thing Dr. Coster did though that was very funny and unusual was he couldn't stop himself when he had to tell an employee they did something wrong. He started out with the mistake, and stated it clearly, but then he had some unconscious need to continue, as though to get to the real underlying reason why this person made the mistake in the first place.

He would go beyond the first criticism, then add that they must have done it due to something inherently wrong with themselves, then go further to add that it must be something wrong with the gene pool of their relatives that was inferior that lead to the mistake made in the hospital. I labelled the phenomenon "Coster's Cascade of Criticism" to let Doc know he didn't need to go that far when telling someone they had goofed up. Luckily, I somehow escaped the cascade for the eight years that I worked for him during college and vet school.

Dr. Coster had lived in the back apartment of Wilshire Animal Hospital where I lived while I was finishing up my undergrad studies at UCLA. He said I was the last of the line to have lived in that apartment and then gone on to become a veterinarian like he and his boss, Hal Snow had done before him. I think there was even one vet before Hal who had done the same thing. Johnny something comes to mind. He had a bad drinking problem and Hal spent a lot of time covering for Johnny while he left Hal alone in the hospital to play veterinarian while Johnny went off drinking.

Being able to live and work at a vet hospital was quite a privilege looking back on it. I got paid good and got a free apartment and amenities. Quite helpful to a young man from New Hampshire working his way through college. It wasn't a simple place to live in though as friends would point out when they visited. My brother Fred, summed it up perfectly: He said, "Is it ever quiet here? All day long, it's just ring, ring, ring, ding, dong, and woof, woof, woof, and what am I sleeping on here, some dead dog blanket or something?" "When do you ever get to take a break?" "At night, when I watch the hospital, that's the only time I need a break," was my answer to him.

He just didn't understand the privilege of living at a veterinary hospital.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

Slaughter House Earth and the Evolution of Veterinarians

Charles Darwin called our lovely planet "Slaughter House Earth" back in his hay day around the 1850's. He called it this because he noticed that life was so brutal. From insects vomiting up digestive acids on their prey, while they're still alive, to the cruel and vicious deaths brought upon prey by their predators. My own experience is that mankind isn't much nicer, even a hundred and fifty years later.

Veterinarians have been around since man began to domesticate animals thousand of years ago. The profession didn't evolve to a doctorate program though until about a century ago. Harvard had one of the most prestigious veterinary programs, but it dropped this curriculum with the advent of the horseless carriage, thinking erroneously, that veterinary medicine would go away with horses. Surprisingly, their are more horses around now than there were a hundred years ago. Harvard should have kept the Vet Med curriculum and kept turning out top notch vets.

When I entered the profession thirty years ago. The big controversy was between vets who hunted and those who didn't. Today, the debate is between vegan vets and those that still eat meat. Even my best friend from vet school, Dr. Richard Thoresen, who was a hunter, evolved (most probably from the influence of his wife) to become a vegan veterinarian, and he doesn't hunt any more too.

Before the hunting controversy, there was an arrogance among veterinarians that treating cats and dogs was a waste of time and below the dignity of a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Most vets today just treat dogs and cats. I am personally glad the issue now is whether or not we should be eating animals for food. It is a brutal industry that raises and slaughters millions of animals each day. That figure is correct. Millions Of Animals Each Day. Billions each year, worldwide.

A little known fact about one veterinarian, Dr. Dunlop, is that he invented air filled rubber tires that we all drive on now in our cars. He thought the cobble stones were too rough for his son to ride his tricycle on, so he made air filled rubber tires for his son's trike. Dr. Dunlop went on to expand his product line for car tires, that many of us drive on still today. You should know the tire brand, Dunlop, pretty well.

There is a little kindness on the horizon as slaughterhouse techniques are becoming less brutal and more people are eating less meat. I was beef raised and we even said with disappointment to my mother,"oh, steak again" when I was a child, because we ate so much of it. The starving children of Africa might think I was a little spoiled, even back then.

The future is bright though, as organizations like PETA, who are unfortunately too far ahead of their time, will bring about more changes to improve the lives of people and animals. The change is needed, and will surprise you. One day we will even look at keeping animals as pets as cruel too. For the luxury lifestyle that my two cats live though, that day is far away. They happily hog my bed and cover the furniture with cat hair. I feed them twice daily and clean their litter box twice daily too. I think if we asked my two cats if keeping them as pets is cruel, they would answer with a resounding, "No." I know this to be true as Moe got out and was lost for over a month last summer and he couldn't have been happier to have me find him and bring him back home after he had lost half his weight. He ate constantly and purred for a week straight! Me and Bunny are glad to have him back!

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/