My dad's cat, the best cat in the whole wide world (besides Thomas, of course), has cat AIDS. Well, technically it's called FIV- Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, but the page that I found said that the virus is similar to the AIDS virus in humans.
Buddy has always had bad breath, I figured it was from all of the people food my dad gives him. But when I went to brush his teeth earlier this week I discovered that his gums were rotten. They were black and red, inflamed and diseased. I immediately showed my dad and told him that the cat needed to go to the vet. I thought maybe Buddy had gingivitis or something.
Like AIDS, FIV has no cure, and the life span of an infected cat is unknown. A cat infected with FIV may live for months or years from infection. From what I read, FIV is spread from cat to cat through bites, and the largest population of cats infected are stray males. We don't know when or how Buddy got it, and so far, the advanced gingivitis is his only symptom.
My dad was afraid to take Buddy to the vet; he didn't want there to be anything wrong with him. He feared that this gum disease might be a sign of a bigger problem, as it has turned out. It's really kind of sad. My dad is one of those guys who figures it's better not to know. If there's nothing you can do about it, it's better not to know, then you spare yourself all of the worry and anxiety.
As soon as I heard about Buddy, I checked my cat's teeth, no sign of inflammation. Thomas doesn't have any of the other symptoms, weight loss, fever, poor coat, lethargy, any thing like that, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have it.
Buddy is now on antibiotics and he has to go in to get his teeth cleaned and scraped and four teeth pulled next week because of the gingivitis. For a cat that eats as much as Buddy, the cure may be worse than the disease.