FIP Is Treatable Now?

[kittenmittens84]

So does Neurological/ocular fip mostly happen in younger cats? I believe most older cats past 2+ of age only get dry fip and not wet? Not sure if that's true though.

The vast majority of cats that get any type of FIP are younger than 2-2.5 years old. It can happen in older cats (seniors are higher risk) but it’s a lot less common. I don’t think the type varies by age group, cats will often start out with one type and eventually develop another anyway. It just depends on which part of the body the virus attacks.

 

[saleri]

The vast majority of cats that get any type of FIP are younger than 2-2.5 years old. It can happen in older cats (seniors are higher risk) but it’s a lot less common. I don’t think the type varies by age group, cats will often start out with one type and eventually develop another anyway. It just depends on which part of the body the virus attacks.

Okay my mistake. I thought mostly younger cats get wet fip and older get dry. Thank you for your help!

 

[gilmargl]

Yes. Gilead Sciences (the company that makes remdesivir) owns the patent on the drug, and they originally gave permission for it to be used in FIP research trials. It’s my understanding that after the trials were completed they declined to let another company pursue drug development and approval because they were hopeful that it could find a use as a treatment for Ebola in humans and thus wanted to keep sitting on the patent. Unfortunately Gilead has no interest in creating and selling a veterinary drug.
There’s some hope that with remdesivir being used as a treatment for covid, that could be an avenue to approval for an FIP treatment since remdesivir breaks down into GS 441 in the body, but remdesivir is more expensive and hasn’t been tested against FIP so who knows. It’s very frustrating.

When I first heard about this cure for FIP about 2 years ago, I was convinced that cats infected purposefully with FIP must have been used in medical tests looking for a treatment for the ebola virus disease. Until I read your post, I did not know that medication for FIP had been more or less put on hold as "Gilead has no interest in creating and selling a veterinary drug".

Poor cats in the lab! Dying for company profits and people's health and not even being able to save other cats in the future!

 

[saleri]

Sorry one last question. What is the legality with me buying these items? Are they legal in the USA to buy? I know vets can't recommend it because it isn't fda approved, but can regular people legally buy it?

 

[Talien]

You can get it cheaper but it's literally on the black market out of china, this is how people were getting it previously.

Of course, if you can get access to it for a "research study" it's also cheaper, but good luck with that unless you can find a medical supply place that doesn't ask too many questions about why you want it.

 

[gilmargl]

I've heard it was (is?) on the black market - possibly stolen from research labs!

 

[She's a witch]

Sorry one last question. What is the legality with me buying these items? Are they legal in the USA to buy? I know vets can't recommend it because it isn't fda approved, but can regular people legally buy it?

these are knock offs of a patented medicine, mostly from China, how legal can this be But who cares about legality if it can save your cat.

 

[saleri]

these are knock offs of a patented medicine, mostly from China, how legal can this be But who cares about legality if it can save your cat.

So can you get in trouble with the police if you buy Mutian ?

 

[kittenmittens84]

I've heard it was (is?) on the black market - possibly stolen from research labs!

No, it’s not stolen from labs. Since there’s been research done and published about the compound, all of the information about how to synthesize the drug and its molecular structure is available to the public. You can even buy it legally from US lab suppliers (in a powdered form, not a form that could be used for a medication) for the purpose of research. The theft that’s happening is intellectual property theft since technically Gilead owns the patent, but other companies are synthesizing the drug themselves.

So can you get in trouble with the police if you buy Mutian ?

No. Mutian would be the ones to get in trouble, not you as the customer. They sell their product as a dietary supplement in the US which is very questionable as far as legality goes (it’s a drug, not a supplement!) but the end user would have no way of knowing that and I can’t see how police would go after you. Mutian insists that their drug is a “proprietary” formula and they don’t list the specific ingredients on the packaging.

 

[saleri]

No, it’s not stolen from labs. Since there’s been research done and published about the compound, all of the information about how to synthesize the drug and its molecular structure is available to the public. You can even buy it legally from US lab suppliers (in a powdered form, not a form that could be used for a medication) for the purpose of research. The theft that’s happening is intellectual property theft since technically Gilead owns the patent, but other companies are synthesizing the drug themselves.

No. Mutian would be the ones to get in trouble, not you as the customer. They sell their product as a dietary supplement in the US which is very questionable as far as legality goes (it’s a drug, not a supplement!) but the end user would have no way of knowing that and I can’t see how police would go after you. Mutian insists that their drug is a “proprietary” formula and they don’t list the specific ingredients on the packaging.

Okay thank you. Just curious, any studies or papers on FIP for just general knowledge you can recommend? Just want to learn a bit more about fip in general.

 

[gilmargl]

There are Facebook groups: FIPfree, FIPfree for vets etc. As I don't like, don't trust Facebook, I don't automatically believe the claims the bloggers make. A German Internet site stated a year ago that vets (in Germany) are not allowed to use GS but cat owners, private people, can. They can get GS on the black market but need a vet to give instructions on how to use it, in order to avoid serious side-effects.

 

[Siamic]

To date I have treated 10 cats for varying forms of FIP. Below are pictures for educational purposes and are cats I have treated personally, and to date, there are no known side effects for me or anyone else I have helped. I actually consult with veterinarians now on this topic. My own cat had dry and it cost $3000. He started at 3 pounds with blood count so severe he almost died. He gained 8 pounds in the 84 days of treatment. So the cost went up on account of weight gain. Dry is more expensive than wet. It goes like this in terms from cheap to pricey: wet-dry-neuro-ocular. You typically only see fluid with wet and not dry, you see stunted growth and refusal to grow with dry. Wet is more acute (sudden) compared to dry (chronic, over time). Both are fatal, but wet is more aggressive acting. Sometimes all you notice is a kitten that is not thriving, has low blood values, and is underweight to reach a diagnosis for dry. A temp of over 105 was indicated in 90% of cats, 106.8 in my dry case. Neuro you see mobility issues and sometimes in continence. Ocular - blindness, blood in the eye, nystagmus, anisocoria.

I used probiotics, immune boosters (Proboost) and other modalities to help them along like b12 for anemia for instance. I have had a 100% success rate after being trained by several experts in the field. I take it dead serious - FIP needs -immediate- treatment and cannot wait even one day. Failure is typically fault on the owner, and I hate to say that...but under dosing, missing a dose, not being trained and shooting out the other end of the skin all result in failure. Or improperly weighing the cat. You should weight every single day. Being off by even 0.1 ml can be serious! It is important to know what you are doing though because you cannot use L-lysine for instance with cats that have FIP. Of course cats can be so far off and drowning in fluid, that they do not make it.

It is not as hard as you think once you get started - of course cost is a major factor for many people. Wet cases tend to be around $1500, dry around $1500-$3000, neuro and ocular can be double those figures since the drug needs to penetrate the blood brain barrier in order to work. Since the drug is on the gray market, it can be a bit difficult to locate unless you use Facebook. I suggest checking out FIPslayer personally for resources as that is where I started my journey. Mutian is ungodly expensive, and in my experience, other brands have worked just as good like Capella. You would find those on FB groups from individual sellers. You would not get in trouble for purchasing at all. I have been in constant contact with UC Davis and unfortunately. Gilead did not see it as being profitable enough to publish the drug, they decided to focus on humans primarily. It is a sad reality we live in.

The only real issue is that the drug is acidic, and can burn. The med is thick. It can create scar tissue. So you need to have good restraint and possibly even use something like a mild sedative on order of the veterinarian which is typically very cheap. Shaving the cat to visualize the injection site and laser therapy to keep skin thin and lucid is paramount. Blood testing every 4 weeks to see if doses need adjusted and if response is there, is important. You cannot inject in the scruff - due to poor absorption, you need to inject near the back end of the cat which vets can show you how to do. Most importantly, you cannot be more than -1- hour late or early or your risk failure.

Your vet is your teammate in this to diagnose. But in many cats, an A/G ratio <0.8 is also observed and treatment success is based on the 84 days of treatment being met along with A/G ratio being 0.8 or higher. Other blood values need to normalize too because you usually see higher total protein, higher neutrophils (80%) and lower lymphocytes (like 20%). You really want to see neutrophils at 70% and lymphocytes at 30% or as close to that as possible. Age does not matter - it is a glitch in the immune system and can present at 4 months, 8 months, 3 years, 15 years - evidence suggests younger and older (4mo-8mo) (12+) are most likely to break with it due to the immune system not being fully functional, allowing it to spiral out of control.

Wet

Wet

Wet

Dry

Ocular and Neuro

 

[eva.me]

Hi guys!
I need a neutral opinion. I would like to know which brand is the best for FIP treatment. Probably everybody said Mutian but is the most popular, I really want to know which one is the best and not very expensive.

 

[Talien]

Hi guys!
I need a neutral opinion. I would like to know which brand is the best for FIP treatment. Probably everybody said Mutian but is the most popular, I really want to know which one is the best and not very expensive.

There is no such thing as not very expensive, all of the treatments cost thousands. They are also the same thing, all of them are black market drugs, usually from china, because the company that owns the patent (gilead) refuses to authorize it for veterinary use as it is almost identical to remdesivir, which makes a much bigger profit for them as it is for human use. The "brand name" treatments like mutian are middlemen who buy it from sources in china and resell it for a profit. If you can find a source yourself you can cut some of the cost by buying it directly instead of going through a middleman.

If you have a FIP+ Cat look for the facebook group FIPWarriors and you'll get all the info you could possibly want.

 

[chrsitinelawf]

Hello,
My cat has FIP and we missed 1 shot last month. Would that cause an issue later on? Also my vet didn’t tell me that I shouldn’t be late or early so we gave him the shot around 3 or 4 everyday.