Physical Characteristics of F.I.P.

Recently I had a discussion with one of my vets concerning physical characteristics of cats/kittens that have or are suspected of having F.I.P.

I was wondering if anyone here has also noticed anything unusual in their F.I.P. cats? Were there stressors for them before they became ill?

Knowing that there is not a 'test' for F.I.P. only the biopsy/aspiration of fluid in the wet form, this would not be a way to possitively Dx F.I.P., but I'm wondering if there is a similarity in symptoms.

From my own experience this is what I noticed. My Kashi had the wet form.

Matured slowly, had very short legs.
Could not jump up on things.
Huge belly from the fluid starting at about 3 months of age.
Limped quite often.
Had a huge appetite but never gained weight.
Bad Teeth and Jaw was offset-One tooth, lower jaw stayed outside and grew large

Kashi also had the Coronavirus as a kitten as did his brother Keatin. Kashi had a Bot (bot fly larvae, turns into a worm and then leaves the host) in his head when found. This caused him much stress, it needed to be treated and he was Feral. He got much worse when neutered at 4 months of age and vaccinated for Rabies. At that time he already had a fluid filled belly which is when he was diagnosed. His brother Keaton has never developed F.I.P.

my boy was approx 13 when he passed away from FIP. i adopted him when he was about 8 and the history was that he came from a 40 cat household. the owners, father and 2 adult sons, all suffered from mental health issues, to the point of one of the sons setting himself alight in the road.

i was always suspicious that janet was either the product of inbreeding, or he was the runt of the litter and never got all the nourishment as a young kitten. he had polyps in both ears and on various parts of his body. his teeth were awful, he lost a canine a few weeks after we got him. his eyesight was poor and his joints always seemed slightly stiff.

he just never looked as 'perfect' as my other cats (to me he was perfection though). i was pretty sure that he was not vaccinated at his first home and probably had to fight for whatever food he could get. for a cat that was from a multi-cat household he was pretty anti-social with my other 3 cats. milo was the only cat he ever got on with.

i don't know if any of the above factors would link him to FIP. i didn't have a post mortem done on him but the vet had tested him for everything else. all was normal apart from a raised white cell count and just before he died his kidneys were slightly enlarged. both vets he saw were in agreement that it was FIP.

it's hard aswell to compare symptoms for me as most of the FIP cases on here are young kittens. my vet told me that it is common in both the very young and cats over the age of 13.

all i do know is that i lost my precious boy to one of the most aggressive illnesses i have ever seen.

I lost a cat at about 18 months old to wet FIP. We found him on the side of the road as a very small kitten and as an adult, he never weighed more than 6 pounds. Other than his low weight, he seemed perfectly healthy until we put him through the major stresser of moving him across the country. Within 1 week of the move, he got extremely ill and he died about a week later. His belly didn't swell until 2 days before he died.

I just read thru Amy Shojai's articles on FIP and she talks about where the FIP settles into their system depends on the symptoms they have. I think that is why there is so much misdiagnosis out there by vets.

http://www.shojai.com/articles/FIP-1.html
http://www.shojai.com/articles/FIP-2.html

Willow had dry FIP. She was always very healthy (I adopted her when she was 9 months to a year old) except for occasional bouts with cystitis, which was probably due to stress of living with other cats, and the development of what appeared to be a kidney stone or calcification about a year before she passed. She maintained a perfect weight and never seemed sick until she stopped eating about five weeks before her death.