Hi everyone

Newbie here

I have a 18 month old Bengal female cat. Desexed. She has a swollen stomach but is eating red meat and hard food well. Don't know about stools as she is outside toilet trained. Have taken her to the vet in local small town and they advise she has tempreture and fluid in stomach. They have taken blood for testing and should get the results tomorrow. Vet thinks it could be FIP as I have previously had a 2 year old cat die from dry FIP which went into wet FIP. I did wait 3 months before getting my Bengal after last cats demise. Has anyone else hear of cat with wet FIP but still having good appetite???? or has anyone got any other ideas of diagnosis???

Any help appreciated.
cats4evr

I'm sorry, but can't advise & hope against hope that it isn't.

Im guessing the blood test is to see how high your cats titre levels are as there is no 100% way to diagnose FIP other than autopsy. I only know the basics from reading and also from what I have been told from friends who have been unlucky enough to have a cat die from it. I have my fingers crossed for you that it isnt FIP.

I'm sorry that your girl has this problem and also hope it is not FIP. The bloods may show a high or even no titre for Corona Virus and this will still not tell the vets if she has FIP, just that she has had a brush with FIP.

Sometimes the fluid in a wet FIP can give a hint - straw coloured with strings of pus in it is not good. There are other conditions that mimic FIP - toxoplasmosis can be one of them....I am not sure about others.

I am assuming you are in australia and there is a Vet at Sydney University who may be able to give you more information - she is very informative
http://sydney.edu.au/vetscience/about/staff/jnorris.shtml

If you can get homeopathic remedies, I would start her on Apis 30c + Cardus Marianus 30c .. both 3 times a day (you can crush tablets and put it on the food, or crush and dissolve in water and put on food or drop in the side of her mouth with a dropper, which ever is easiest.) I would also give FIP 30c,, one a day.

The Apis can help get rid of the fluid while the Cardus supports the liver, which is why you get the fluid in the abdomen. Giving FIP homeopathically as well helps the body to fight the disease. I used this with the permission of a rescue centre in Turkey for a kitten wiht FIP who it had been advised may need to be put to sleep. The kitten recovered and was later adopted by a German couple!!

Hopes this helps..

Latest update. Some blood results back. All results good except way high white cell count over 100. One more test to comeback hopefully Friday. So hopefully not FIP. Still not sure what is wrong at this stage. Observation so far: stomach still swollen, unhappy cat, likes to be by herself, slow moving, may still have temp. Has good appetite, stools solid with no sign of blood. Still purrs when being fed (what a wonderful sound)

Fingers crossed they can find out what is wrong & so glad it's looking less like FIP

Still confused!!!! Blood results now all in. Sodium 157 ( normal 147-156), potassium 6.1 (normal 3.8-4.6), urea 10.8 (normal 5.4-10.7), alk phos 1 (normal 5-80), phosphat 2.40 (normal 1.29-2.26), white cell count 108.0 (normal 5.5-19.5), neutrophils 43.2 (normal 2.5-12.5), band forms 28.1 (normal under 0.4), lymphocytes 21.6 (normal 1.5-7.0), monocytes 15.1 (normal under 0.9). Numerous atypical lymphocytes present.

Vet now thinks it's leukemia (tested negative for FELV) so not virus obtained.

My baby girl is still eating well and going to toilet well. She still has swollen belly and is a bit slow walking. No jumping on anything. No longer wants to go and hide but is happy to be near us.

Vet is going to take sample of stomach fluid on Monday.

It is not always easy to diagnose something in a cat, although I don't know why vets don't test for several known diseases at the same time..
If FELV try giving that in a 30c one a day plus homeopathically along with Ars Alb200/China 200c.. 3 times a day.

Again, this has helped with a cat with FELV here in UK who wasn't eating and had been on antibiotics for 2 weeks..

Homeopathics can work along side conventional treatment , isn't toxic and doesn't have any negative side effects like conventional treatment. Give ti a try!!

Thank you all for your advice and thoughts.
All good with my baby girl so far. After a massive scare from my vet who stated that Heidi had a high chance of having acute leukemia and had only 2 weeks to live if she did not have chemo and if she did have chemo would last about 12 weeks. Vet suggested we have her put down. Leukemia could not be 100% diagnosed without a bone morow test. My baby was still eating and grooming well. She still had a large stomach and was anemic. I decided to continue her on the antibiotics and see how she went. plus I also gave her a small amount of aspirin every second day and also a small amount of an iron tablet every second day. If she went down hill we would consider putting her down. The wednesday after the vets call Heidi's stomach started to reduce in size. By the end of the week her stomach was normal size. She is now acting like her normal self jumping and playing, etc. The only thing is she is still a bit anemic but she does eat a lot of raw meat including raw liver. We have not taken her back to the vet as she is looking so good. It just goes to show that sometimes you have to follow your gutt on things and not always go with what the vet suggests. At the time I kept asking the vet if they were sure it was leukemia because other than swollen stomach and abnormal blood work as listed previously she was herself. From what I looked up on the net if she had leukemia she would be lethargic, not eating, not cleaning herself and have the runs, etc. she had non of these. Nothing against my vet I think its a very good practice and they have been fantastic, but it goes to show that sometimes you just have to go with what you feel. We still take one day at a time but so far all is well. Happy cat, Happy owner.

Hopefully your cat is now on the mend. Vets do get it wrong from time to time...must be hard with them not being able to tell where is hurts etc.

I am a little confused re the asprin...I have always been under the understanding that asprin is highly toxic to cats.

Yes you are right aspirin can be very deadly to cats. As you can imagine we were very concerned about the health of our little girl. She looked so sad and uncomfortable that we just wanted to ease her discomfort. We searched the internet and found that aspirin in very very small doses 10mg/kg given once every 72 hours is ok. As we gave her aspirin every second day we cut that down to 5mg/kg. We only gave her aspirin about three times in total.
Everything is still ok with her at the moment. Gums are still light but energy, diet, etc normal.