What I know about Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP)

Feline Coronavirus and FIP Diagnosis & Prevention June 2020

Having been in rescue as long as I have, and focusing my rescue work on kitties, I have come across FIP too many times. Now that I am also networking and providing support to other people who foster kitties, this topic comes up a lot, and it is quite disheartening to hear so many things that I know are patently untrue when it comes to FIP. I wanted to take a moment to write down what I have learned from my own experiences, by reading as many articles as I have, and being a part of the FIP community.

I will admit, it had been a while since I had dug deep into the research and experiences of owners and vets so to do this post I started looking for verification from the experts of what I knew to be true a few years ago as well as any new data that has arisen. Some of the information has changed dramatically since the availability of the new "treatment" for FIP, and that in and of itself is unsettling. Too many people are calling this once 100% fatal disease "curable", which I find to be misleading.

What is FIP?

FIP is a mutation of the Feline CoronaVirus (FCoV). It is rare, occurring in shelter kitties at a rate of 0.06% of the population (*) It presents in two ways, wet and dry. Wet fills the abdomen with fluid, dry does not.

What is Feline CoronaVirus (FCoV)?

CoronaVirus in cats generally is pretty harmless(*); it might cause a bit of diarrhea which might need some supportive care such as fluids, but on the whole, there is not much to be done for it but wait it out. Think of it a very mild common cold. FYI: one fact I stumbled on while getting the reference material for this post is something I have wondered for years. FCoV is a pretty fragile virus. Quote: FCoV is a relatively fragile virus (inactivated at room temperature within 24 to 48 hours), but in dry conditions (eg, in carpet), it has been shown to survive for up to 7 weeks outside the cat. Indirect fomite transmission is thus possible, and the virus can be transmitted through clothes, toys, and grooming tools. In organ homogenates, it is even resistant to repeated freezing at −70°C for many months. The virus is destroyed by most household disinfectants and detergents, however. (*)

Unfortunately, the rates of incidents of FCoV is actually very high in shelter and rescue kitties (*), which leads to all kinds of confusion. If you ever hear of feline coronavirus and you look it up on the internet, all you basically find is information about FIP. At least that is what happened to me when I first tried to figure it out. FCoV is actually pretty contagious and I have been told that we should just assume that any shelter/rescue kitty has it.

FCoV mutates into Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP)

Occasionally, rarely, FCoV mutates into Feline Infectious Peritonitis. As far as I can tell, we still do not know why(*). There is a really cool video on YouTube that shows what happens after the mutation if you are interested. 

Once the virus mutates, it is no longer contagious. If you have a kitty with FIP, you do not need to be afraid of it giving it to another kitty. Could the second kitty also mutate the coronavirus and acquire FIP, yes, especially if they have similar genetics and similar stressors in their life, but remember, this is a pretty rare occurrence in the first place.

I have been hearing some people talk about Ocular and Neurologic FIP. I found this quite fascinating as I have only ever heard the experts talk about "wet" and "dry" forms of FIP. Looking for information on this I have found that people are using these terms to discuss the progression of dry FIP.  Back in 2002, my cat Kodi (*)  had dry FIP (although we never did the necessary tests to ultimately confirm that) and he started bleeding in his eyes at the end. It was what caused me to realize that his time was at an end. I always assumed that it was due to the damage of his internal organs and not FIP in his eye, but in the end, that is unimportant. What matters is figuring out if when someone suggests your kitty has FIP if that is accurate or not.

Why am I writing this post?

The reasons are two-fold. One to discuss what FIP is and the second is the serious limitations we still have regarding this disease. We still have no definitive way to diagnosis it. There is no FIP test despite what vets will tell you. Researchers are getting closer to figuring out how to definitively say a cat has it, but right now that is only via some very expensive testing and even that is only 96% accurate. There are biomarkers that can "rule in" or "rule out" FIP, but that does not mean the cat actually has it as those biomarkers can be raised for any number of other reasons.

There are many symptoms to FIP depending on how it presents and sadly all of them are generic and can present because of any number of diseases. Some issues that have been misdiagnosed as FIP have been: toxoplasmosis, brain tumor, required a dental, lymphoma, bacterial pleurisy, thiamine deficiency, cancer, worms, cerebellar hypoplasia among others. Most of these have a pretty safe and easy treatment, so when your health care provider is suggesting your kitty has FIP then you really need to either tell them to forget that diagnosis and look for something else or get yourself to a new vet. The experts in the field have a flowchart to diagnose it. I am going to reiterate how rare it is. Only 18% of the samples for testing that had a diagnosis of FIP actually had FIP.  Quote:

"You can only be really confident of an FIP diagnosis if you have a positive FCoV RT-PCR result on the effusion of a wet FIP case, or a MLN FNA or aqueous humour in a non-effusive FIP case." (*)  

These cases are not just people thinking the kitty had FIP, but vets who suspected it enough to refer the case on to this point. 

Are you starting to understand why I get so incredibly frustrated when people bandy about the idea that a kitty is suffering from FIP?  Yes, FIP is a real and incredibly serious disease. FIP can and does happen to kitties everywhere, but simply because a kitten is failing to thrive doesn't mean it has FIP. 

FIP is also a disease that takes time. Kittens are generally not diagnosable before three months. They are only open to infection to FCoV at 5 to 7 weeks when their maternal antibodies start to wean. It then takes time for the body to interact with the virus enough to mutate and then it takes another couple of weeks for the mutation to do the damage required to start showing symptoms. (*) Most cases of FIP occur in cats between 4 and 18 months (*)

But isn't FIP treatable now?

Yes, there are two drugs that have put cats with FIP into remission. Some people call that a cure, but with so little data on the subject it is hard to know. I looked into what it would take to get the drug, and it is basically a black market drug from China that requires almost no oversight. You don't need a diagnosis of FIP (mostly because it is still extremely hard to prove as there is no test for it) and the people selling this drug simply say if you suspect it to go ahead and try it and see what happens. From what I have learned it is extremely expensive (in the thousands of dollars range) and quite painful (the medication stings) and it involves daily injections for weeks if not months and sadly many cats do not survive. Because we generally do not know if the cats who receive this treatment actually have FIP or not, we can not say that those who survive the treatment are cured of FIP. Maybe they had some other condition that they recovered from because of the constant care of the owner while being given this medication. Lastly, since this medication has only been in use a few years (at the time of this post) we have no long term data about what happens to these cats in five or ten years. Do they continue on with a normal life? Is there organ damage? Are cancer rates higher (or lower?)? We simply do not know.  I do know that, at this time, if I had a kitten with a seriously strong suspicion of FIP, I believe I would not give the medication at this time.

In conclusion:

While FIP is a real and serious threat to kitties and it is not something to be taken lightly. If you suspect your kitty has FIP, you really need to work with a vet who is willing to ignore the suspected FIP infection and look for a different diagnosis or work with you to do the necessary tests (*) to figure out if that is what you are dealing with.  If your vet is not willing to go the extra mile for a kitty who they suspect has FIP, you need a new vet.

I have said that more kittens die of a false FIP diagnosis than will ever die of the disease itself, and the experts are in agreement.

FIP - a possible treatment??

I started following the Winn Feline Foundation and I read they have given out several grants recently.  One was to test the efficacy of a drug to help treat FIP!!

You have absolutely no idea what this means to me.. having lost my sweet Kodi to FIP, and knowing there is NOTHING that can be done for it, no vaccine to prevent it and no treatment to help cure it or slow it or even help the kitties feel better while dealing with it.  It is a death sentence and there is no test to prove it is FIP until a necropsy can be preformed..  Can you tell I hate FIP?

my standard disclaimer in case anyone shows up here doing a search for FIP.  If you have a kitty who was diagnosed with FIP, do not do the "titer test" it is a waste of money.  It tells you the count of the corona virus not if the virus has mutated.  Just about every cat has been exposed to the corona virus at one time as it is very common.  Also, get yourself a second and a third opinion.  Since FIP is a diagnosis of elimination (well it isn't A, B or C it must be FIP) finding a vet who thinks outside the box or has a lot of experience with FIP is VERY important.  Join support boards online.  There is a really popular one on Yahoo.  People who have gone through it and deal with it daily can give you other suggestions of things to test for.. not all disease is fatal.

Now, this appears to be far from an actual treatment that people can use, but to even consider there is something - well to me anyway - is huge.  I am seriously considering sponsoring the study.. Granted, it will be a tiny part of it, but I'm sure any help would be appreciated..

The Crew History - FIP

This is not an easy post to write, but I needed to get out the experience I had with FIP in order to be referenced during Muffin's and Eli's upcoming posts.

In the fall of 2002 I brought home a set of orphaned kittens.  There were six of them and they were a LOT of work.  This being my first fall using the downstairs room to foster, I didn't realize how cold it would get down there.  Not ideal for young orphaned kittens who have a hard time regulating their own body temperature.

At the time I had a mother kitty with four kittens.  I didn't know this at the time, but not all of the kittens were hers originally.  I still don't know who was an add on and who she gave birth to.  Not that it matters.  I talked to the shelter about the orphans, and they suggested that I take my mother cat and see if she would nurse the orphans - since her four kittens were eating on their own and were doing just fine.

Well she did take to them ok, but it didn't seem very fair to leave her with out contact with her own kittens.  It was still very cold in the basement, and I figured if they thought it was ok to put the mother with the kittens, why wouldn't it be ok to put the kittens with the mother instead, so I combined the two groups into the warmer of the two rooms.

Orphaned kittens can not be tested for Felv/FIV until they are six weeks of age.  It apparently wasn't even considered that this could be a problem, but sadly it was.  The orphan's story is quite heartbreaking on it's own but that is the past.  They taught me a lot of respect for fostering, and being aware of what COULD happen. If nothing else, their short lives were for something.  The shelter's policy on kittens is to euthanize if they are found to be felv or fiv positive.  I understand a lot of people find that offensive, but I have to respect the shelter for realizing their limits and accepting their financial resources should be limited.  Yes, they could have kept these kittens for another few weeks and tested again, but then those funds could go into an animal that absolutely can be saved, and not drained in the risk of maybe they would fight off the infection.  I don't like it, in fact I hate it.  But I hate the fact that any animal needs to be put down before it's time, and better it be for an incurable illness then a fixable injury

***just an aside.  Felv/FIV should not be a death sentence for a loved pet.  A lot of cats can live long healthy happy lives infected with these horrible diseases.  Both work on the immune system, so cats who are infected need to be cared for a little more cautiously, but it does not mean they are going to immediately die.  Kittens brought into a shelter with Felv or FIV could be raised and very well could be neutered/vaccinated and not have health issues, but it is a risk that the disease could cause problems, and frankly it is VERY hard to find people to adopt these types of cats.  Why would they take a chance on a cat with a known health issue, when right next door is a kitty who is healthy and just as cute?  It sucks, but it is life in a shelter system.

So now we have a known exposure to Felv for the four kittens and the mom who remained.  I was asked to keep them for six weeks and have them tested again.  What a hardship on me, because the longer you have a kitten, the more your heart attaches to them.  But I was already head over heels for one of them, and didn't mind having him around.  The whole family was constantly battling URIs, and except for a really bad case over Thanksgiving, they did seem to abate while waiting out the incubation period.

Six weeks later, we had them tested.  Unbeknownst to me, the shelter only tested the mother and one of the kittens.  I do not know who, but it really doesn't matter.  The test came back negative, and I was never so thrilled to hear of a failed test :)   Took me quite a few minutes before I could wrap my brain around negative being good.    I brought them all home with me, and we had decisions to make.  The litter of kittens had two boys and two girls.  Both of the girls were totally full of it - personality up the wazoo.  One of these "Muffin" was also quite photogenic.  She loved being photographed, and being in the middle of things all the time.  The boys were "Eli" and "Kodi".  Kodi was a beautiful cat, and both my husband and I wanted to keep him very much.  We felt we were at our limit of cats with three, and I tried to convince my husband that we didn't want to keep him with "Well if we keep Kodi, we have to keep Muffin and Eli too!" (The other girl kitten "Izzy" just did not bond with us at all, and I am sure she has found her perfect place in life just as she was meant to)   Some how he agreed and we went from a three cat household to a six cat household.  It was crazy and insane, but some how it worked.

Unfortunately Kodi never did get over his URI.  He battled congestion continually.  I finally brought him to my own vet (outside of the shelter system) who recommended a less aggressive course of treatment for it.  URI in owned cats is generally viral, so most medications you can give won't really help.  It is mostly supportive care and making sure they can eat that is critical.  I place absolutely no blame on my former vets for what happened next, because I doubt that even taking an aggressive stance with the URI would have changed anything.

Kodi got worse, and my vet couldn't see him for a couple of days, so I decided to bring him to the vet that saw him previously.  They gave him a much more aggressive treatment for his URI, but it didn't make much of a difference.  On a follow up exam, it was determined he had a fever.  URI and fever generally don't go together, so we started looking for different reasons for it.  Well in the end they settled on FIP.  I almost fell down - having just read about FIP the week before.

FIP is a mutation of a very common virus that generally is found in cats.  In fact pretty much every shelter cat has been exposed to it, and except for maybe a few private catteries who aggressively eliminate it, well lets just say it is very common.  The mutation is not.  They still don't know why the virus mutates.  While their understanding of FIP has come a long way (when I first started reading about it on the web, most of the information was from the 80s and 90s. and that it was that it was highly contagious) there still is much that is unknown - and pretty much unknowable at this point.  There is no test for FIP.  Previously they tested for the coronavirus - which is the virus that mutates - and which is the tests that were run on my cats.  I did not know, and the extremely high titers that came back scared the living daylights out of me.  It was recommended we test again in six weeks, and several of the cats tested even higher.  I was told by the vet attending my case that this means the cats are shedding the virus and this was bad news.  She could not tell me much more then that.  She also went behind my back and told the shelter I should no longer foster kittens because it was dangerous for them.  She not once told me she felt this way - which I found to be a huge betrayal (especially since I was now working for the veterinary clinic she was working at)

Well I never stopped reading about FIP and over time I realized how wrong this vet was.  FIP is a diagnosis of last resort since there is no test.  There are two forms.  Wet FIP which fills the cat up with fluid is pretty obvious but still is not conclusive to be FIP.  Dry FIP is much more elusive, because other then general malaise and a fever, there is no definitive clues that says "YES! this is FIP"   I can't strongly recommend highly enough (enough adjectives there?) that anyone facing an FIP diagnosis get their kitty to a new vet for a second if not third opinion.  Since you are reading this on the web, I also recommend you find an FIP active online community forum who can help you look for other conditions that have been previously diagnosed as FIP that hopefully your cat has instead of FIP and can be treated.  (yahoo groups has several at the time I'm creating this post, but I'm sure there will always be others)

But unfortunately what she was not wrong about was that he had FIP.  Poor Kodi had a tragically short life.  While I did not end up doing a necropsy to be absolutely certain he had FIP, he ended up bleeding into his eyes, and had several other classic FIP issues.  Could it have been something else? I guess.  And I so wish I had thought to bring him to a different vet back after I first got the diagnosis for him.  Probably wouldn't have changed anything, since I was ignorant of what FIP was, and I was unable to get my hands on any of the new information until quite a long time after Kodi passed.

My whole point with this blog is to share information.  This is what I faced, and this is what I chose to do and faced with this again, the changes I would make.   I don't always succeed in not being obnoxious about things (declawing, food, free roaming outdoor kitties) but it is never my intention to make anyone feel they were wrong about decisions they have already made.  What is done is done, and all you can do is make decisions from the point you are and go on.  If you had a kitty die of FIP, I am very sorry.  My heart breaks for you because I have been there and done that.  If you are here because you just got the FIP diagnosis, please learn from my ignorance, and get a second or third or fourth opinion for your kitty.  Google the living daylights out of FIP, and learn all you can about all the new research, and all of the different illnesses that can mimic FIP for a doctor who is not quite as up to date on things.

The more out of touch your vet is, the faster they are going to come up with an FIP diagnosis.

FIP and this household

A bit of background history for those of you who are new to this blog.

Last year, I fostered a group of kittens. One, Kodi, I fell in love with.. I had already said I was not going to adopt any more after Jack.. so in order to not adopt him, I said that I couldn't keep Kodi with out keeping Muffin and Eli. Well, thanks to my husband, we ended up keeping them all. Unfortunately, Kodi became very ill. The doctors decided that he had FIP, and in the end, we did what was best for Kodi and we euthanized him. It was a very hard day. Compounded by the doctors who suggested we bring in the rest of the gang for testing. I was told they all showed positive for "FIP". I was told that just because they had it, didn't mean they were going to come down with it. We retested in six weeks, and every ones titres went up. The doctors told me that it was an active infection, and to keep an eye on them.

Well to this day not one of them (okay, well Eli, but he's a different story) has gotten sick at all, and I recently had three of them retested, two have "negative" titres, and one has been reduced four fold to a barely positive status.

Again, for those dear readers who aren't privy to my rantings about the "FIP test", Just so you know, I NOW know them to be unreliable and doing them is irresponsible. The test simply checks for the presence of the corona virus. FIP is a mutated form of it.

In my research, I have come across a number of conflicting pieces of information about FIP. The doctors at the clinic told me that it is airborne. Articles on the web say it is not. The doctors at the clinic say it is transmittable.. articles on the web say it is not. I tend to take information found on the web with a grain of salt, because I usually can't verify the authors. Unless I get it from a known source, I never feel completely comfortable with it.

Well the other day I got my new issue of Cat Fancy (July 2004) and in it, is a very informative article on FIP. Unfortunately it didn't cover one of my most burning questions. Is it airborne? Dr. Plotnick DMV wrote it, and I found his email address on the web. I wrote him to ask. He replied that it is not airborne, and it can not be transmitted by people who come in contact with a cat that has it.

Didn't I break down and cry! It is so good to have official confirmation that the kittens that have come through my household were not exposed, and that the two known cases of it did not get it here.

more sad news

last week Tobin - one of my little orange fosters that included Ennui and Anika - came in because he wasn't his happy go horrid self. (apparently he was a major spitfire) He had a fever of 104. They admitted him and did tests on him, and after a few days in the hospital, they came to the decision that he was too ill to continue to live, so they put him down. The "fip test" came back with high titers. For any of you who know anything about FIP, or know anything about my opinion of this "test" you'll know I'm not a big fan of it. But he had stopped eating and was in very poor health.. I do not condone the decision to euthanize him, I do understand it.

Needless to say I'm not in a good place emotionally right now. I'm still in major transition on the house front, work is still not what it should be, and now this. Not to mention the little kitten I currently have that won't not hiss at me when I go to pick her up. Her sister and brother trust me, but she's not a big fan of being picked up. She doesn't have much of a problem with being held.. just the big scary hand coming at her isn't her favorite thing in life. *big sigh* Oh well.

The shelter is having a Kitten Shower on May 8th. You are all invited to attend, but I know most of you can't. Feel free to send them money *big cheezy grin* Tell them you heard about it here..

awww

Well, the kittens are slowly coming out of their shell. The littler female is still a little hissy.. she also has a bit of a hernia on her belly.. something very easily fixable when they spay her. Doesn't seem to be bothering her at all, so I'm not going to worry about it. The little boy is a laugh riot. He was actually starting to play the other day. They are still eating kitten mush.. kmr mixed with kitten food.. but they are eating well and using their litterbox - to the point of throwing the litter out of the cage on to my nice hardwood floors.. lol. I don't care.. it sweeps up.

Bit of disturbing news however.. two days ago little Tobin came into the clinic because he wasn't his horrible self. He was lethargic. Turned out he had a fever of 104.. went up to 105 the next day, came down to 104, but its still not good. The doctors are thinking FIP. The research I did tells me it couldn't have possibly come from my house.. especially since my own kitties have much lower titers now .. not to mention he has been out of my house since October, but I still feel horrible about it. That is two known deaths from FIP of kittens that were in my house. How many have left and haven't had anything?? wonder what the infection rate for FIP is in the "wild". (I just typed that last FIP as RIP.. freaked me right out)

They still haven't specifically determined FIP (like that is an easy thing to do - NOT!). but it is looking like that. I'm so depressed about it. He's such a good boy. There still isn't a cure, and really isn't even a treatment for it. I've continued to research and found people who are trying. I mentioned that to the doctor who is treating Toby, but she seemed very dismissive of the items they are trying. I hate that. If it is FIP, there is NO treatment.. why not try the newer suggestions.. *sigh* oh well.

g2g - I'm in a computer class at the moment and the class has caught up to me so the teacher is teaching again.. toodles

Life, or something like it

I could have sworn I blogged somewhere between this post and the last post, but alas, it is not there..

I ended up boostering everyone's FeLV vaccine.. figured what the heck. Brought Eli in because his eyelid had swollen up a bit. Realized his vaccines were overdue.. did his, brought home Muffin's to do. Emmy got a clean bill of health.. going to do a bg curve on her this weekend, and then start her back on the herbs. The herbologist at work did Ollie's vaccines. We got to talking about what a grumpy gus he can be, and she offered some herbs. At first, I thought they were doing really well, but he's getting mighty territorial.. he gets really annoyed when anyone gets in what he considers his space. If he jumps up on me for some petting and someone else is already there, he gets pissy and leaves. If I put a food bowl down and he thinks it should be his, he gets pissy at whoever else might put their nose in it.

I got Jack's FIP titer results back when ollie was in for his dental. (his teeth were a bit covered in plaque, and his breath was bad. I only recently started brushing kitty teeth.. so I wasn't surprised) Jack is negative now. *Yahooie* so I had them pull some blood on Ollie. Ollie, however, is not negative.. but he is a lot less positive than he was. The titer test is such a weird thing.. 1:32 to 1:64 is considered negative. the next reading is 1:128, then 1:256 then 1:512 then 1:1024 and up from there I guess. Ollie's original positive was 512. we then tested again in six weeks, and his next titer level was the 1024. His reading from earlier this week was 256. So he's a lot less positive than he's ever been! Hopefully, soon he'll be totally negative.

Now again, the titer test doesn't tell them a whole heck of a lot. Only that his body had reacted to exposure to a virus that may or may not mutate into FIP. but then again, that is what the experts are saying at this particular point in time. Doing research on FIP is like trying to find out what the English were thinking when they built Stonehenge. One expert says this, another says that most of the stuff I can find is from the early 90's.. which means its more than 10 years old. It's horribly frustrating!! but from what I can tell, just because they have been exposed to the virus does not mean they are going to come down with it, but I do like the fact that they are working on being negative.

On a side note.. I got the cutest thing in my email today. The woman who adopted "Peanut" and "Gonzo" who has changed their names to Treads and Miles, sent me a photo of Peanut today, she made a little valentine out of it. It was ever so sweet.

That which starts off my journey to learn more about FIP

well.. I got a phone call from the shelter. Remember how I said that kim was surprised to hear I was fostering? Well, she took it upon her self to call the shelter and tell them that it was a bad idea. The shelter called another vet to get their opinion, and while they didn't think the risk was more than minimal, they thought there was a risk, so the shelter has decided that I shouldn't foster.

which.. btw.. is fine. If I am putting kittens at risk, I do NOT want to foster..

but aren't I pissed beyond description at the way kim went about it?

but.. my research on the matter, has told me that the kittens aren't at risk...
Check out this and you come back here and tell me what you think... heck.. feel free to do your own research on FIP, and if you find anything from the year 2000 and on, I'd love to read it.

Pumpkin and Giz were adopted

Pumpkin and Giz were adopted today. :) I had a couple people looking at Gimmie, but sadly she didn't get adopted today. I am going to go back tomorrow and try and find her the perfect home. I am very much wanting it to be my home, but sadly I can't bring any more cats into the house due to the fact that Jack is Felv positive, and the FIP.. *sigh*

Tonight driving home from the movies we hit a kitty running across the road. The cat ran off, so we have no idea how injured it is.. hopefully not very. Totally shook me emotionally, though. Driving home from that, I saw a couple more kitties dead on the side of the road.

I really hate people.

Goodbye Kodi

took Kodi to the vets this afternoon. I held him the whole way down, he cuddled into me. He seemed to be doing quite a bit better this morning and ate quite a bit, although he had two large lumps in his stomach area, and his good eye was becoming quite bloody. The vet took one look at him and came to the conclusion that I came to yesterday. She said there were things that we could do for him, but even if they worked, chances are that it wouldn't work for long and he'd soon be suffering again. As much as I didn't want to let him go, I had to. She took him and put a catheter in his arm. She asked if I wanted to be with him when they put him down, and I said yes... then I said no.. but I knew I had to. Years ago I was there for a stray I took in Melody, and Id never forgive myself if I wasn't there for him. We talked about a few other things (later) and then the time came. She was very good about keeping the catheter out of my line of site.it wasn't a pretty thing to see. I held and kissed his head, and patted his tummy (the best I could) while she injected him. a moment later he shuttered, and was gone. It was unbelievably hard to leave him there.

We talked about the tests that were run on the other kitties. since both FIP and leukemia are both highly contagious, we took the other cats in last Monday to be tested. Due to some break down in communications, we didn't get the results until this evening. Everyone in the household "tested positive for FIP"*. Muffin and Eli had the lowest "titre" count. Em had a moderate one. Jack and Ollie had a high count. the high count was around 1 to 500. Kodi's was in the thousands.

One tested positive for Leukemia - jack.

Unfortunately, FIP is very hard to diagnose. The only test they have counts the titres in the cats blood. titres from my understanding are basically antibodies to the disease... meaning they have been exposed. Simply because they have been exposed does not mean they will come down with the disease.
It doesn't even mean they will be a carrier. However both are possibilities. And sadly there is no sure way to know for sure.
http://www.winnfelinehealth.org/health/FIP.html
http://www.hdw-inc.com/healthfip.htm

Now. Jack also has the issue of leukemia. This too might just be a false positive due to the exposure. Its a very very slim possibility.

Right now everyone is healthy, and happy and that is what matters. The vet recommends we test them all again in six weeks to get a comparison level for their titres.
It wont give us a lot of information, but it might give us some.

Right now.. its cleaning and bleach time. Seems kinda silly since they already have it.. but ..

this also appears to have put an end to my fostering days. this too is very distressing.

Muffin is sitting on the cat tree being unbelievably cute.. and here comes Em. I think its time to get off line and spend some quality time with my kitties.

*update 2015 - they ran a corona virus titre test, which is NOT an FIP test, never was, never will be. It irritates me my vet didn't read into this more before she did what she did

Kodi

Kodi seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Yesterday I noticed you could feel his bones through his fur quite easily.. He also didn't seem to be eating as much. I made him up some kitty formula and fed that too him which he wasn't too happy about.. but I figured that was a good thing. That night he ate some more, but just wasn't himself. This morning more of the same. No kodi crying for attention.. he was slow to move from his spot to me. When I medicated his eyes he didn't fight me. The purr wasn't as loud. *whimper* I'm going to put him on antibiotics twice a day again.. he always seems to do better with two doses instead of one. If he doesn't improve quickly I fear the end will be soon.

update: I got some iams kitten food for him this afternoon.. it took him a little bit to get up the energy to eat it.. but he ate it. Hubby thinks he's just being lazy as opposed to being too sick to do things. I think it might be part of it, but not all of it. Hey.. as long as he's eating - even if it is with some coaxing..

Kodi has FIP

vet just called.. ok.. not quite an hour ago..
Kodi has FIP.. he has absolutely no immune system, and there for absolutely no chance.

all the kitties will need to go in to be tested.
Gonna have to make the hubby make these arrangements..

Will probably put kodi down sooner than later. He was eating the other day, but today just wasn't into it.
probably when the hubby gets home..

friday..

happy valentines day to me hun?

Kodi is sick.

Ok..
*takes deep breath*

I took Kodi to the vet today. He's in pretty rough shape. One of his eyes is discolored and he's still running a fever. The vet gave me some more doxi for him and some eye ointment. She also took a ton of blood from him to run tests.

I went out shopping and just got home a few minutes ago. There was a message on my machine. I called, and found out that he tested positive for Lukemia. She still wants to run the tests for feline infectious peritonitis.. which if he has that is BAD

oh man.. what have I done?

We are going to have to test all my kitties for lukemia, but we are going to wait till the other tests come back to see where we stand on all the other issues. If its just lukemia, and we can get this URI under control, he could live a long normal life.. or it could wreak some major havoc with him..

We just don't know.

sigh.. One cold night, and one suggestion from a staff member at the shelter, and now this..

*prays* Please don't let anyone else be infected..

(update 2015 - I now know there were no 'tests' for FIP, I do have to say this whole thing was a complete and utter mess from start to finish and sadly it disrespects Kodi's life so I am not going to get into it any more than I have.  Kodi, I still miss you)