FIP or not?

4cats

TCS Member
Thread starter
Young Cat
Joined
Feb 16, 2003
Messages
28
Purraise
0
Location
Dubai
Here's another question from me...

Our 16 month old cat Jeffrey seemed to be drinking a lot so I took him to the vet to get his kidneys checked. They did lots of tests - suggested cancer (his white blood cell count was v high), liver tumour, all sorts of awful things. In the end they decided on dry FIP and this was "confirmed" with the IFA test. His titre is 1.8, which is high I know. The vet said he had some fluid on his lungs and that his liver was not in good shape so she told us to give him brewer's yeast as a supplement, but other than that said there was nothing much we could do.

However, Jeffrey is eating and playing normally and has no signs whatsoever of being ill. So surely he doesn't actually have FIP? I presume what the vet meant was that because his titre level was high he has been exposed to the corona virus (he was a rescued bin orphan so this would not be surprising, unfortunately), and this means he may be at greater risk of developing the disease. I believe the test has no way of telling whether the virus is the type that will mutate into FIP or not. So in other words, he may develop it or he may not (we desperately hope not of course). Did the vet not make it clear or did I misunderstand? Surely a high titre does not mean he has the disease if he is showing no clinical signs? Does anyone have any bright ideas??
 

sol

TCS Member
Alpha Cat
Joined
Sep 27, 2003
Messages
590
Purraise
4
Location
Sweden
The only certain way to diagnoze FIP is after a post-mortum has been done so I guess your vet means that your cat has been exposed to the corona virus which really doesn't have to mean anything. About 70% of all cats carry the corona virus without ever developing FIP.

However I would advise you to keep a good look at your cat. A bad liver and fluid in the lungs doesn't really sound good and when it comes to FIP there's a million different symptoms of the disease.
 
Top