Anemia in cats

My cat stopped eating while I was away. His exam was normal except for anemia. He is eating, drinking, and using the litter box and is on an oral iron supplement twice a day. My question is how long does it take for his energy to return? He is only 18 months old and is acting like an old cat.

Hello!   That depends on the context:  what is causing the anaemia and what has been done to treat it?  Have your vets found iron to be low, and said that iron supplementation would be useful?  Because unfortunately it isnt the only cause of anaemia, and when there is too high an iron concentration in the bloodstream, side effects can include depression, abdominal pain and haemorrhage, so iron supplementation isn't always appropriate.  If your cat may be suffering from iron toxicity, please do contact your vets.

Iron aside, there are many different causes of anaemia.  Anaemia simply means a shortage of red blood cells - and sometimes a blood sample can read as anaemic because the machine used to run the blood was not made for cat blood.  Therefore, depending on the machine, the vet may need to double-check it using a microscope.    Has someone verified that your cat has anaemia - and was it regenerative or not?  Anaemia is usually either classified as regenerative or non regenerative.  In the regenerative anaemias, the cause is such that the bone marrow can still produce replacement red blood cells, but the red cells then become damaged or lost (eg if the pet is bleeding internally or the red blood cells are being attacked).  Often, the marrow's attempts to produce a lot of red blood cells at once can manifest as immature red blood cells being relessed too early into the bloodstream.  This is one of the first thing vets look for when trying to tell if anaemia is regenerative or not.  Non regenerative anaemia happens when the bone marrow doesn't make (generate) any red blood cells and this is at the heart of the shortage.   Non regenerative anaemia can be seen when the bone marrow stops making more cells.  Sometimes, clients assume that their cats blood is anaemic because the cat has gone pale at the gums, but there are several possible explanations for this including dehydration.  The answer to your question is tricky without understanding the context and what tests have been done, so talking this over with your vet may be a good starting point to understanding what the future might hold.

I took these links from the blog.  Between them, they explain much more fully  a) why there is no one single 'correct' treatment for anaemia b) and what causes the different kinds of anaemia that we observe in clinics. https://vethelpdirect.com/vetblog/2021/08/23/4-symptoms-of-anaemia-in-cats/ https://vethelpdirect.com/vetblog/2022/06/21/how-is-anaemia-in-cats-treated/