vet recently tested my kitten for bartonella without discussing it with me,

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my kitty

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no signs of it,no vets in area do? I checked within a 50 miles of my area and no other Vet's do this testing. My cat shows no sign of bartonella either. Funny, because The Humane Society adoptions do not use this test. I'm looking for organizations, etc. that I can question about this. Thanks!
 
Feline bartonella is spread by fleas, and it has a definite connection to stomatitis and mouth ulcers. New research in the past 5 years has gotten a ton of new info on it. Our vet was part of the research study and they found that 3 out of every 4 cats showing up with bad mouth problems actually had bartonella. The GOOD news is that most bartonella can be cleared up with a 21 day course of antibiotics, helping the cat.

It may be that your vet was seeing a lot of mouth ulcers lately in cats. The bartonella test is pretty good and can tell them if your cat has been exposed. It's part of 'cat scratch fever', and can be localized in an area or it could be that the vet was just being cautious. Bartonella can sit in a cat for years and will only show up when the immune system is sufficiently low to make it break out.

Humane Societies only test for leukemia and FIV, so there's a LOT that they never test for.
 
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