Possible Fip?

[Grojo]

7 year old indoor cat in an only cat household. A few months ago she wanted to make the switch from dry food to wet food, and during this switch she lost a lot of weight. She always free ate because anytime we tried putting little bits out at a time she’d eat it so fast she would puke it back up. But on the switch I think the boyfriend and I didn’t notice that she wasn’t eating her dry food and only eating her one 3oz can split in the morning and evening. After we realised that we started feeding her straight cans. She has been slowly gaining her weight back on four cans a day, and she’s hungry she wants more than what we give her. She got weak from the weight loss and wasn’t jumping as much but was still acting playful with us and always asking for belly rubs. About two weeks ago I noticed her jumping again, her spine and hips are filling back in and she’s more steady on her feet. She dances at our door all day wanting to go outside.
So yesterday I decided to set up an appointment with a local vet office that has affordable services for city residents. The past three days she has started coughing and has a squinty eye. I’m thinking upper respiratory infection. This appointment is on Wednesday.
We get home from setting up the appointment and after her pawing and screaming at the door to go outside for about half an hour straight she has mucus diarreah right in front of us. Mostly clear with a few pieces of undigested food. She has NEVER not used her litter box. Alarmed I called an emergency vet, scooped her poop into some vials and set out on my way with her. At the vet they tested for fiv, leukemia, heart worms, and did a fecal on what I brought in all negative. They said her intestines felt large and ropey, her lymph nodes felt fine, her teeth looked good, and they said she was showing signs of a URI but would let the vet that I’m taking her to deal with that. She said my cat was running a fever of 102.6 and gave her fluids to keep her temperature down and sent her home with a dewormer and a can of e/n. She wanted to run tests for FIP on her saying that she thought that the weight loss in the past and that she’s still on the skinny side could be the fip with her diarrhea. She’s been resting since we got back from the vet yesterday. She happily ate her can of e/n throughout the night in thirds mixed with water. She had two movements in the night that were beginning to solid up, and a third movement about an hour after we gave her the dewormer that was a solid healthy poo. I gloved up and broke it open, some hair, what looked like a piece of rice from the e/n food and not much else, but i figured it was too soon for the dewormer take effect.

I don’t know, I’m sorry for the ramble. I couldn’t afford to get the tests done for fip that day due to already spending $300 on what was already done and the evet said that they would be close to $200more for the tests.

But. In the past I’ve always thought my cat has shown signs of something similar to my ibs, she just has the shits for a day or two once a month and clears up on her own. Could this be the enlarged intestines that the evet was feeling.
She does have an appointment with her vet on Wednesday.
On the symptoms that I’ve seen for fip she shows fever (102.5), weight loss(but is currently gaining), And a squinty eye.
Currrntly she’s really steady on her feet walking around obstacles on the dresser, jumping up on the washer and dryer, she’s at the moment scratching and meowing at my bathroom door because she wants to roam the whole house. The vet advised we separate the pets.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Well, it's really hard to tell. This, to me, does NOT sound like FIP. It does sound more like IBD, especially when the Vet said her intestines felt large and ropey. It is true that a fever of unknown origin can be related to FIP, but really, only if it doesn't resolve itself. You don't know yet if it's gone or not, do you? Or what actually caused it? Does your cat get pretty stressed when going to the Vet? Reason I ask is that 102.6 isn't really that high for a cat. (The normal range goes as high as 102.5). And I would think if she was pretty worked up, that could cause a slight increase in her temp.

Additionally, if she is getting a URI, this could also easily account for a fever, and would be the only reason I can see for keeping her separated from other cats. FIP is not actually known for being contagious, AND, to my knowledge, there are no known tests for it. There are some "semi" tests that can be run, but nothing exact that will say 100% yes. So...if you have other cats and they are not showing any signs of a URI and you think this one might have one, that is the only reason I can think to keep them separated. (it could also be Feline Herpes or allergies too...has she had this issue before?)

Hope I haven't made things even more confusing!

 

[Grojo]

She has not had the squint eye before, and i have been pulling goop off of it. She talks to the stray cat at the door who has shown signs of the herpes in his eye the three years we have lived here. I figured if it was an uri with my cat I would grab up the stray and get him treated as well for one. They don’t come into direct contact with eachother but will sniff through the door jam at eachother. She is strictly inside and he is strictly outdoor he came with our apartment. I do have a dog and have been keeping my cat and dog seperate as per vet instructions, which is causing stress on my dog.

 

[Grojo]

on our ride to the vet it was 98 degrees outside and the ac in our car wasn’t working so we relied on windows. I do think the car ride stressed her out as she started meowing as soon as she felt the wind.

 

[Grojo]

And I will be picking up a thermometer tonight to check her temp after I get off work.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

OK, I didn't realize you had a dog since you made reference to an "only cat household". Sorry for any confusion on my part. Dogs CAN catch URI's from cats since they are similar to the common cold, so I'm guessing this is why the Vet suggested keeping them separate, NOT because of possible FIP, but I'm just guessing.

You said your cat WANTS to go outside. Do you ever let her out? I know you said she is strictly outdoors, but has she ever escaped since you said she shows such a desire to go outside? Could she ever have had direct contact with that cat that you think does have Herpes? Reason I ask is that it definitely is contagious among cats.

Unless you move up your regular Vet visit to determine whether or not she has a URI, or want to risk having your dog get it, I think it's probably best to keep them separated. That is, unless the stress of having them separated is making it worse. Stress can make them sick you know. It's a catch-22

 

[Grojo]

She has escaped once or twice but I don’t believe that her and him really got into too much direct contact, but again I could have wiped the outdoors cat eye booger and touched my cat without washing my hands. It’s an old house so there’s a pretty decent gap under our door I’m sure if they wanted they could touch noses or paws. I want to let her out but I’m too scared to do so because I live in an alleyway and I’ve seen people try to hit the outdoor cat with their vehicles and smack him with their grocery bags when walking and while I do flip my on people when they are mean to the cats, I’m pretty sure I would draw blood over my baby, so I try to keep her indoors. I’ve been currently spring cleaning and trying to invent more vertical space for her to kinda ease her off of the door. And my thoughts on the uri with the both of them is my cat is coughing and the outdoor cat is sneezing and both started around the same time, so I will be getting him treated if she shows up with one as a precaution that they don’t pass it through the door at eachother.

 

[Pinkbelly77]

She has escaped once or twice but I don’t believe that her and him really got into too much direct contact, but again I could have wiped the outdoors cat eye booger and touched my cat without washing my hands. It’s an old house so there’s a pretty decent gap under our door I’m sure if they wanted they could touch noses or paws. I want to let her out but I’m too scared to do so because I live in an alleyway and I’ve seen people try to hit the outdoor cat with their vehicles and smack him with their grocery bags when walking and while I do flip my on people when they are mean to the cats, I’m pretty sure I would draw blood over my baby, so I try to keep her indoors. I’ve been currently spring cleaning and trying to invent more vertical space for her to kinda ease her off of the door. And my thoughts on the uri with the both of them is my cat is coughing and the outdoor cat is sneezing and both started around the same time, so I will be getting him treated if she shows up with one as a precaution that they don’t pass it through the door at eachother.

I'm sorry im responding so late. I'm just now posting since my 6 year old baby got a most likely FIP diagnosis. The vet, he's great, he keeps telling us he could be wrong and don't give up on him. I hope things are well. I didn't see any posts after this.

 

[Grojo]

I’m sorry for the long response, I have posted in nutrition asking about food.
When we had her regular vet appointment her eye was pretty much normal, we told her about the upset stomach etc, they took her back examined her and said her guts did feel enlarged, she was skinny but not emaciated. They didn’t want to do a round of antibiotics because she already had an upset stomach. They reccomended switching her diet up and want me to check back with them, which I am going to do late July/early August.
I broke down in the pet store more than once trying to find food that didn’t contain chicken that she would eat.
She devoured soulistic duck+tuna and wouldn’t touch a pate. She got solid on the food, but it’s inconsistent sometimes, and I was advised to not do tuna.
I tried everything, venison, duck, rabbit she would occasionally eat the merrick pouches but would get really bad diarrhea after them and visibly felt bad.
An employee recommended kibble, (I have tried everything I could get my hands on she would only eat Purina cat naturals when I got her) I tried whole hearted salmon first. She ate it, her first kibble since all of this started. But her food anxiety kicked in and she scarfed and barfed any feeding we tried to do, so we couldn’t tell how she did.
Back to soulistic duck.
Solid poop. Food anxiety began she rummaged the trash, tried to bully the 70lb dog out of her food. She had been clearly gaining weight, even though she would get the stomach upset from eating dog food, or tearing into a loaf of bread.
On a whim one day I bought her a can of blue buffalo basics duck and potato. She ate it, and I slowly introduced that into her rotation and now has solely been on that.
My boyfriend and I were talking about her food anxiety one day, how she’s stressing herself out running to her bowl constantly anytime we get up, we both work and have different in and out times almost daily, so her schedule can’t be set absolute. I picked up a bag of blue buffalo basics duck dry food. I introduced it to her over a few days as treats during playtime so she couldn’t scarf and barf it, she seemed to handle it well getting a handful here and there. I tried a bowl, and she ate it as fast as she could and got sick. I tried a smaller bowl and she did the same. She was doing this to her wet food but keeping it down, when we tried smearing it on a plate she literally looked like she was going to bust her teeth.
I broke down and bought her another food dispenser, I set it up nervous as I poured a bag of kibble into it. My heart was racing, I thought to myself I was going to kill her, but had a small hunch that this might work.
I sat in the kitchen the first hour, watching her sniff it, walk around it, and munch on one or two kibble. She walked away and went to go play, satisfied. She immedietly went from scarfing and barfing dry food to eating a kibble here and there. I watched her through the night, her crying at dinner time was minimum. She didn’t wake us up for breakfast, and ate her can slowly. A small indent in the feeder showing that she ate through the night.
It has been 3 days so far and she has had solid poop, she isn’t getting into the trash, begging for people food, she’s leaving the dogs food alone when the dog eats. (We put the dog on time feedings) she hasn’t scarfed and barfed once and is eating her cans slower. I figure I’m going to keep her on 2 a day and adjust to how much dry she is eating. I change her water daily so I’ve got a dry erase marker to mark the levels of the dry food.