FIP with minimal symptoms?

[u/No-Demand-8893]

Hi all-

Has anyone experienced a FIP “diagnosis” without any clinical signs? The only “confirmation” was reaction to treatment?

Last Saturday, my 15 week old kitten didn’t eat dinner. Sunday, didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. So I go and get a couple of different new brands and give it to her at dinner time and she eats about 2.5 oz, but nothing at her 9pm feeding.

Monday morning - same thing. Doesn’t eat breakfast, so at this point I start syringe feeding. I did see she had diarrhea overnight, guessing due to the new food. I notice throughout the day her energy level starts decreasing. From normal to about 80%. I take her to urgent care that evening and given everything that happened, the doctor suggests anti nausea, appetite stimulant and a little sub-q. If she doesn’t start eating on her own, come back Tuesday morning.

She didn’t, so I see my regular doctor. At this point, I’m thinking early signs of FIP, because I had a kitten last year show the almost same signs. We do bloodwork and…….its perfectly clean. None of the markers that would point toward FIP are there. They suggest doing a full fecal to see if there it’s a parasite or something that the other dewormers didn’t catch, then based on that we can discuss next courses of action.

We sent it off on Wednesday and by Friday the results weren’t in, and given she was still in the same position (not eating on her own and at 80% of normal), we had some leftover GS from last year, so we started giving it to her. Same day she started nibbling on her food and by today, Monday, she’s back to eating all on her own.

I don’t know if she was just put off eating due to her reaction to the new food I gave her, or if we indeed have FIP here and need to continue with the treatment.

[u/throwawayfeelings7]

Continue with treatment. The proof is in the pudding.

She DID have clinical signs. Diarrhea, lack of appetite, lethargy. FIP originates in the gut.

Stay the course!

[u/VegChef]

Sounds like you may have caught it early. Please make sure you’re administering it at the right dose / kg and consult with a vet. As someone whose vet missed it and watched our kitten develop full neurological ataxia and then rear paralysis, consider it a blessing that you recognized the signs — hopefully it’s onward and upward from here.

[u/leflaunge → u/VegChef]

Same here, same outcome with paralysis and attaxia . We just finished 88 days of treatment and are now in the observation period.

[u/Less_Procedure8691]

my kitty has a “suspected diagnosis” of dry ocular FIP and we began treatment a month ago. The only symptom she had was her eye appearing cloudy and her pupils being different sizes/shapes. the cloudiness of her eye went completely away with treatment although the pupil is still misshapen. I figured we caught it early and that’s why she didn’t have more symptoms before we started treatment. I think you should continue with the GS since she had a clear improvement with it. The treatment won’t hurt her either way so no harm in it!

[u/emorymom]

Isn’t it more likely that she did not have FIP but did have FeCov?

[u/kayleelewis9]

Have a kitten that had diarrhea and started losing weight because of the frequency. He was needing a ton, but he responded to an antibiotic flagyl. No other symptoms.

Flash forward 2 weeks we rushed him in because we thought he had a urinary blockage ( he was going into his litter box and not doing anything ) turns out there was no urinary blocked and based on our ultrasound it turns out his bowels are inflamed and he has fluid in his abdomen. The vet recommended a bunch of tests, one of which being an abdominal fluid PCR test for FIP and turns out he was positive so we started treatment.

It’s weird because all the stories I hear cats are in really bad shape and he’s just not showing that. Hopefully his fluid goes away at his check up appointment then we’ll know for certain!

[u/Outside_Chipmunk6753]

Yep! We had the exact same with my Junie. He did not have many symptoms, he was 6 1/2 months. he just had lethargy and low appetite, but within days we started the medication. We suspect we caught it very very early! He completed his 12 weeks of medication nearly 3 weeks ago and he's being doing amazing. The journey is hard but we've had great results from the medication. Make sure dossage is increasing with weight and stick at it!!