Well crud

The kitten we rescued a couple months back has tested positive for FIP. This is a contagious virus that is untreatable and fatal. It remains to be seen if any of our 3 cats got the virus from the kitten.

Oh man, that sucks Sarah! :(
I hope your other cats didn't catch it.

Oh Sarah, I'm so very sorry to read this. I did do a bit of a search through a few sites and hope that this one might give you information and support. Big hugs!

http://www.dr-addie.com/

Oh Sarah, thats terrible. sorry to hear about that. you and your kitty's are in my prayers.

Oh NO, Sarah!! That's terrible!! Is there any hope of a false positive??? :( I really, really hope the rest of your pets stay healthy!!!

FIP is horrible.

However...there is no test for FIP.

There -is- a test for coronavirus, and some corona positive cats do go on to develop full blown FIP, but it's a very low percentage.

My first bottle baby kitten who I had raised from 3 days old got agressive FIP at 6 months old, and I held him as we euthanized him. Panicked, I spend hundreds of dollars testing my entire household, read up on all the latest studies, retested them...and then decided it was all a load of hooey.

One vet said 95% of cats in the US will light up a corona test, and only a tiny fraction actually get FIP. As my cats share litterboxes, I'd wager that all 8 of them are corona positive, and I'm not remotely worried about it.

As near as anyone can figure, it takes a particular cat's particular immune system reacting to a particular strain of corona to actually get FIP...and so far, nobody has pinned down the specifics on any of those factors. While corona is contagious, FIP is not and most corona positive cats live to a ripe old age and die of normal old-age stuff. Very few will ever get FIP.

Don't sweat it, and don't let the vet tell you otherwise...many of them still believe the older info that FIP is contagious and fatal. The reality is far more complicated than that.

ah i'm so sorry to read this sarah. sending you hugs and hope that none of your other kitties got it.

Thanks, y'all, everyone here is pretty devastated about it. I had a few homes lined up to adopt her, but they all fell through. My daughter got attached to her and agreed to pay for her vet visits in order to keep her.
Of course, I didn't make her pay for this recent bit, as it did run into the hundreds!

Jess, the kitten is extremely bloated in the tummy, and the first vet I took her to withdrew some fluid that turned out to be straw colored. She diagnosed FIP off of that alone. After that, we took all our cats to our regular vet. He tested them all for leuk, which he said 99% of FIP cats will have that. They all came back negative. He then sent off a test to a lab that tests for heart, liver and kidney problems, as well as FIP (or coronavirus I guess?). That one came back positive.

There is really a lot of conflicting information about this virus, I have no idea what to think!

Ahh...so your kitten is corona positive -and- symptomatic for FIP. :-(

I have never seen it treated successfully...The best you can do is keep him comfortable and let him go when it's time. I am so very sorry.

My gorgeous Frankie...a soft blue tabby...developed the plaques in his eyes at six months old, and we euthanized him before he developed neurologic problems. It was horrible and there was nothing I could do to fix it. (And the stupid cremation people lost his body!!!!)

The positive news is that your other cats should be fine.

Thanks, Jess. It's a sad thing to go through, I feel the worst for my daughter.

I'm so sorry about your cat, and then insult being added to injury. That is just really horrible :(

Dang Sarah........ I'm SO SORRY. :( Keeping my fingers crossed that your other kitties didn't get it!

Thanks, Laura. That is definitely my main concern at this point, other than my daughter, of course.

Awwww Sarah your poor daughter. I hate when kids have to lose a pet far too young and too quickly to something that just can't be fixed. All I can tell you is when our family dealt with this years ago with a young and beloved dog that got cancer, we just hugged the kids a lot and talked to them about being strong and responsible owners that must make a harsh decision so their dog did not suffer even more. It's just a plain hard situation though and heartbreaking for everyone. Not much one can do but hold on tight and get through it with the kids. It's the most awful part of having pets isn't it. :(

Man.. I am sorry that you have to go through this. I send you and your daughter my best wishes that you cna deal with this and know that you at least gave him a much better life..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slartibartfast

My gorgeous Frankie...a soft blue tabby...developed the plaques in his eyes at six months old, and we euthanized him before he developed neurologic problems. It was horrible and there was nothing I could do to fix it. (And the stupid cremation people lost his body!!!!)

The positive news is that your other cats should be fine.

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Wow, that bties that they lost his body.. :( Is the eye-gook a sign of FIP? I know of people that have cats which always seem to have that stuff in their eyes (it is a business where cats run around freely.) I am always leary about even petting other people's cate for fear of transmitting something to mine..

Thanks, Jo and Jen.

That's where we are right now, trying to decide when to take the kitten in. She's definitely going downhill, but still acts happy for the most part. I have no idea what to tell my daughter about when to take her in. We don't want her to suffer, but we don't want to do it too soon. Ugh.

Aww, I'm so sorry to hear this. Months ago my husband and I lost our kitten Marz, it ate me up trying to find out what caused his decline, much reading and many many conversations with my vet later we determined it was probably FIP, my other three cats are fine, adult and healthy though I do tend to watch everyone a closely.

My thoughts are with your and your fuzzies.

Eye crusties can be a sign of a lot of different things. The plaques I'm talking about where actually on the iris..white blobs overlaying the coloured parts. That was the first thing we noticed, and they spread over about a week until we let him go. He was otherwise okay, but it would have progressed to neurologic stuff and I didn't want him to go through that.

Sarah, that's a hard line to find. Again, just thinking back to our dog when we went through this I had to find the place where her quality of days was more important than the quantity of them. With the type of fast moving cancer she had (though it seemed a painless one) the vet warned us of certain signs to watch for. One of them was when it began to affect her spine and she'd have trouble rising. So this was the benchmark for us and what we sat down and explained to the kids. That her cancer was not causing her pain but when it began to affect her ability to walk, it would start to cause her a lot of pain and fear. This was when we must take her right away to the vet and let her go and that was our best way to show her we loved her...to not let her suffer just so we could have another day with her.

Not saying it was easy Sarah. Katelyn spent Maggie's last night alive sleeping on a blanket with her on the floor and it near broke my heart to watch but Kate needed to say her own goodbyes. We did encourage all the kids to totally spoil Maggie for those last 6 weeks, feeding her all sorts of forbidden treats and so forth. As much as it hurt to watch it, I think it did teach the kids that they need not fear her passing, that everything that lives must die and all they could do was love her, enjoy what time there was and then love her enough to let her go before she suffered.

After Maggie was put to sleep we talked a lot about how proud I was that they were responsible pet owners and how much Maggie enjoyed her time with us. We tried to focus on her good years and even the good days of her passing so that she didn't just become "the dog that died of cancer".

I don't know the progress of this FIP but if there are certain "markers" that would indicate a sharp decline is coming or pain or whatever, then perhaps you can discuss these with your daughter and help her prepare for that sort of timeline. I find with the kids that information, even if it's difficult to accept, is far better than nameless fear of what might be coming.

It's the toughest thing Sarah, as a parent, to watch your kid grieve but it's such an important thing to help them learn that it's okay and very healthy to do so.

Thank you, Melissa.

And Jo, thank you so much for those words. Today it is over.
It's been a very rough week, Courtney has spent every spare moment doting on and comforting the kitten. She has been so loving and strong, I am just amazed by this wonderful person I've helped raise.
Yes, there were signs we were watching for, and they got much worse the past couple of days. Courtney made the decision last night that it was time to let her go, and we went in this morning.

This little abandoned baby had the very best care for her short life. She had tons of love, and the best death she could have had with this disease.

Thank you all for the kind words, and information.

I think it's wonderful that she had you guys...think how much worse it would have been if you hadn't been there for her...she had a loving home, every possible thing that could have been done to get her healthy, and a gentle end when it was time. Kudos to you for helping her out.