Wendy,
Thank you for all the information on coronavirus and FIP! I
am going to ask my vet about about L-lysine, immuno-regulin, and
interferon at our exam tomorrow. Unfortunately, we've had another one
go down-hill since Ally crossed. When I temped everyone on Friday
they were normal. Everyone was eating and playing great all weekend;
I particularly noticed Will Feral wolf his Sunday dinner with gusto.
He slept with us all night and was especially loving and snuggly and
charming, which he hadn't been for the past week or so. I didn't see
how he did with breakfast, but he was sleeping at the end of the bed
when I got up. He was still there at 10:00, I temped him and he had a
very slight fever (102.7) I made a tentative vet appointment for the
next morning, but when he still hadn't moved off the bed a couple of
hours later, I temped him again and he was 104.4. We rushed him in, he
got a penicillin injection and a shot of some steroid, we came home
with Gentamicin and clavamox for everyone. We assumed it was corona,
maybe FIP that we were dealing with again, had a combo test run, good
news is he tests corona negative (not that that means anything, such an
unreliable test) as well as FIV-, but is now Felv+. The others go in
for combo tests tomorrow. They are 14 weeks old, last Felv/Fiv tested
at 8 weeks (negative). Will is doing better, but still feverish. We
are supposed to be camping with friends Thurs afternoon through
Sunday, this is our only vacation this year, I don't want to go,
but Gary has been looking forward to it. My mom is caring for all the
animals for us, but isn't up to temping. I just pray she can do the
meds right. She's practicing tomorrow morning. I'll have the test
results Friday, but won't be able to post until Sunday or Monday.
Pretty much expecting 3 more Felv positives. At least it's not FIP
again. I'll post as soon as I can,
Thanks again,
Beth
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:38:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: To Beth
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Beth,
I have no experience with FIP. I do know that cats
live long lives with it symptom free. I am not sure
if the test for FIP is reliable (I think I read this
somewhere), so I wouldn't worry myself over this. I
read in my Cornell book that the coronavirus is a
group of strains of viruses, one of which causes FIP,
so the test your vet was referring to might have been
one and the same, but not sure because of the
different strains of coronavirus. It said the
coronavirus is very common and as far as FIP goes,
stress is the biggest factor in virus development.
Cats with FIP usually have moderate to high titers of
coronavirus, so if Alice had very faint, then the FIP
strain might not have been what she had. The book
also says that in multicat households, coronavirus is
extremely common. There is no diagnostic test that
can specifically identify carriers of the
conronavirus, and a definitive clinical diagnosis of
FIP can only be made during a necropsy (autopsy) after
death or by a biopsy (not sure where or how).
I would start giving your kitties L-lysine (make sure
there is no propenol glycol in the ingredients), about
500 mg per day, if they are showing symptoms of the
herpes virus (sneezing, conjunctivitis, etc.), which
is also difficult to test for and believed to be
fairly common (maybe as common as the cold sore virus
that humans get). This will boost their immune
systems to put the herpes virus into remission if
that's what they have. And help their immune system
as far as the coronavirus goes. Once they are symptom
free, you can keep giving them 250 mg. per day of the
lysine, or just keep them as stress free as possible.
Keep us posted on these babies. And take care of
yourself while you are grieving for Alice.
:)
Wendy
