Feline Infectious Peritonitis

[allurejml]

Hi, I posted here middle of July when my cat, Bella was almost paralized. She has completed 6 weeks of Quinicrine. She is totally back to normal. She is however still on prednisone. She has been on it since day 1. She is being monitored by our Vet Neurologist. She is currently on 5mg prednisone every other day for 3 weeks. She had been on as high a dose as 5mg twice a day for 3 weeks. Bella can now jump up on counters and my bed. Bella did not have a definite diagnosis of FIP since my Vet Neurologist says is hard to see 100% in the dry version. She felt very strongly she did have it. We did not do a spinal tap or MRI since the treatment (steriods) would still be the same. We had nothing to loose to try the Quinicrine and thats what we did. I have taken pictures of her during her worst and now that she is better. I don't know if she will come off the Prednisone. Next week if all is well we will reduce it to every other day. My Vet Neurologist says cats can tolerate much higher doses then dogs or people. I hope this helps give hope to people and their beloved cats.

[PYE]

I am new here feel my 16 yr old cat may have FIP and so am interested in all your stories.
So glad to hear your good news about Bella i am not sure if your Vet leaned towards the dry or wet form before treatment and would very much like you to tell me please.
Winnie became stiff and less active around 1 1/2 years ago i assumed this was age and stopped letting her out on her own (lots of dogs around here) and then on sat morning her back legs were very weak (thought she had a stroke) a little better today (monday) but very wobbly she eats like a horse but you would never know it to look at her.
Nobody cares for my Winnie like me and Vets in my past experience have messed about causing distress and costing lots of money (which is unimportant if they help) but i feel i need to be fully informed for Winnies sake so anything you can tell me would be great.

[allurejml]

Hi,
I had a vet neurologist examine Bella as well as blood work done. She felt she had the dry form. Bella was given Prednisone by the Vet but after reading all the information on this website about FIP we felt we had nothing to loose to try the Quinicrine. My husband is a Doctor and he was able to order it from a compounding pharmacy and we had it overnighted. It costs about ($120). My vet was not familar with this treatment but was interested in getting more information so I emailed her the link. Bella is still on Prednisone but is finished with the Quinicrine. It took a full month for us to really see a big improvement. We were able to see small improvements daily. I pray for you and Winnie that she gets better soon. These messageboards on FIP and Canine distemperare the most informative and I also joined the caninedistemper.com messageboards which also helped me get a lot of information. Best of Luck!!

[PYE]

Thank you so much for your quick and kind response.
Fingers crossed for Winnie and hope the Vet is as good as yours. Kindest regards Debbie

[allurejml]

I will keep my fingers crossed. Best of Luck with Winnie : )
Jeannine

[stefcat]

Hi there,

can you please contact me, or give me an emailadres to contact you.

i have lost 2 cats to (dry fip to wet fip) in the last 9 months and my third burmese girl, now 10 months old is fading. I suspect she has it too.
I will need a source of quinacrine, asap, as i want to be prepared and start the treatment as soon as my vet is as sure as she can get about the dry fip.

if you can email me privately at : [moderator note: e-mail address has been removed.] (remove spaces and i hope the mod. don't play the bad guy).
And since this forum has no option to send private messages.

stef.

[Poupon]

[quote="PYE"]
Winnie became stiff and less active around 1 1/2 years ago i assumed this was age and stopped letting her out on her own (lots of dogs around here) and then on sat morning her back legs were very weak (thought she had a stroke) a little better today (monday) but very wobbly she eats like a horse but you would never know it to look at her.
Nobody cares for my Winnie like me and Vets in my past experience have messed about causing distress and costing lots of money (which is unimportant if they help) but i feel i need to be fully informed for Winnies sake so anything you can tell me would be great.[/quote]

My only experience is with wet FIP, but what you are describing sounds very much like arthritis and then a possible stroke to me. You'd really need to take her to a vet to know for sure. I assume you take her for her yearly exams? If so, what does the vet think of her slowing down? If she is wobbly but still jumping up on things, check your house for hazards to avoid injuries until she feels stronger. I have a now 3 yo at that had a weak back end when I got him ( most likely from being from a huge litter where movement was restricted before birth). He seemed determined to be stronger, so he jumped a lot, and worked his legs very diligently until he strengthened them, and during that process he often slipped and fell.

The main reason I wanted to respond though, is that I know exactly what you mean when you express concern about vets causing distress. I had one cat live to 20, but she had very bad arthritis for several years and needed special handling at the vet. Our vet had so many elderly cat patients that my 20 yo was considered a junior patient. He really understood these elderly cats and handled them very gently and with respect. When I moved across country I was shocked by how rough some vets and techs can be, especially when drawing blood. I now choose a vet in part by their bedside manner, and I ask questions to make certain they understand that an older animal is not as flexible as a kitten ( believe it or not, some seem to not know this). I offer to assist when blood must be drawn, and shy away from vets that aren't comfortable with that. My last vet staff used to tell me that cats fight bloodwork so they use restraints, but I think the way they used restraints MADE them fight. I've held cats for bloodwork before and never seen one of my cats of my cats fight it. I had an elderly cat come back once when I let them do it, and she was sore for days and badly bruised and roughly shaved. It was easy to see how roughly she'd been treated because she was white and the bruising showed. The vet made excuses about how she fought, but I absolutely did not buy them, because this cat was super passive and never fought anyone in her life. I believe they only fight when a tech has a bad attitude. Anyway, see if being more proactive about the handling helps. In general, I find that the vets who are gentler with cats are gentler when adding up the bill as well ;-)

[PYE]

Hi Poupon
I live in an area that mainly has farm vets tried many and my experience so far is they are all the same and i hate taking my pets to them. Blood work well, sad to say my little Winnie was badly scarred and sore after hers. You are right she had Arthritis which was my first guess too. They also found that she had an overactive thyroid but all her organs were in tip top condition however they xrayed her lungs and came back with feline Asthma?. Anyway took Winnie to the vet on mon when all tests were done she was just having a bad couple of days and thought it was best to get her checked and on wednesday after blood results she had her first thyroid meds (on prednisolone since mon) by wed night she was rapidly breathing (80 breaths per min). So stayed with her.
But by thursday at 5:45 after another xray from a very cold and unpleasent vet. They were awful no eye contact rolling eyes when this fool dared to ask questions, sorry but it was an undescribable hell. I was so scared and almost pleading with this person to show an ounce of compassion to my beautiful little girl but they gave her an overdose of ether and it was all over they could do nothing i am just heartbroken.
Lots of vets work there and i have spoken to 4 of them each gave me a different reason that this happened ASTHMA, COLLAPSED LUNG, THYROID, CANCER.
I am now very worried as my Jack Russell Judy is now showing similar symptoms to Winnie and God help us we are going in today for blood work and an xray they have had her on antibiotics for over a week i am actually shaking as i type this sorry but i am so scared. I have looked online and Heartworm is kind of standing out to me but vets say this is only in USA and different parts of Europe but not according to Google. Anyway sorry to rant but i am in a bit of a state right now.

[Poupon]

Wow, Pye, I'm so sorry to hear about Winnie. There is never a good reason not to treat an animal with respect, which includes gentle handling.

I am familiar with asthma, as one of my cats has it. He was a 3 week old orphan and the only survivor (of 14) of an abuse situation. When I took him in, (originally as a foster for the Humane Society) he panted a lot. I had never heard of asthma in cats at that time and didn't know cats got it. He was 6 months old before he was diagnosed and in retrospect he'd had a number of close calls in that time. We really need to find a way to get the word out, because I'd been an aware cat owner for 50 years before that and never heard of it, so I figure most don't know. I suspect another cat we have has it too, because he has a breathless purr. My cat with asthma had other medical problems that I focused on, and I the panting seemed like nothing by comparison - I even thought it was kind of cute =8-0.

Anyway, any cat with asthma or suspected asthma needs special handling during medical procedures. Stress triggers it as do many medications, so that is just a given. If the vet said asthma may have caused his death, then he needs to be able to also tell you what precautions he took during the procedure.

For future reference: I am a rehabber of wild animals as well as a foster for cats, and one thing rehabbers swear by is Rescue Remedy by Bach Flower Remedies. It's available in every health food store in the US for about $10.00 A bottle will last you years and it never goes bad, so it's easy to have on hand. Here is the company's website: http://www.rescueremedy.com/ Also google for reviews of it, rather than just taking my recommendation for it, but here is mine:

I first learned of RR after my then 7 year old son got upset at a friend's house and his mom phoned and asked if she could give him some. He said it calmed him right down and asked me to buy some for home. That was 11 years ago and he still swears by it. As a rehabber, I feel safe giving it to the tiniest, weakest animal, and have also used it on nervous horses with equal success. Bunnies are one of the most difficult animals to rehab as they tend to go into shock and die. I give RR to them, and have not lost one yet. I cured a squirrel of grand mal seizures (triggered by being startled) with it. I'd put some in her ear during the seizure and she learned that if she went into a seizure she calm herself and get out of it on her own, and then simply stopped having them. And I recently cured a dog who had chewed a big hole in her leg of that behavior. There are no side effects and nothing unsafe in it. You don't get any sort of euphoria or such that you'd expect from a calming potion - it just seems to erase stress.

I wish I could give you some sort of encouragement about vets. There are saints and ogres in practice, and I've had both, so I know how that feels. All I can say is keep asking people for recommendations - especially if you know anyone with a service dog, as they must be very picky. That is how I found my best ever vet. I would likely not have chosen the practice out of the phone book because their names were Rick Hack and Chuck Berger, and so they sounded more like butchers than vets, LOL. But they were terrific.

If this is heartworm, that is quite common and your dog really does need to be seen and treated. Best of luck with him. But......

It strikes me as odd that your two pets would have similar symptoms and that one would have been asthmatic. I would also look into chemicals, etc that your home might be exposed to.

Laurel

[Daveyo]

Hi all and allurejml

If all of you can kindly go to my site and make the posts there under the cats section perhaps we can get more done and establish a much better communication network ehhh. Please go to caninedistempercure dot com and you can find it under the google search.

It would be a great service if you folks can participate and pass these messages there so others can make the better connections, and also you can contact Dr. Sears as he is the one who found some of the cures to this disease of cats.

Good luck

Daveyo