You know what, the entire tag for feline infectious peritonitis is from people who lost cats from it and they’re almost entirely older posts but if a single person sees this and can treat their cat its worth it.
FIP is no longer a death sentence. There is treatment.
The treatment is called GS-441524. It’s about 1 step off from remdesivir. It’s still an experimental treatment and is not FDA approved. This means your vet might not have heard of it and cannot dispense it from their pharmacy. Some vets will not work with you at all on it because they are worried about lawsuits, think its not worth it, or simply have never heard of it. There are cats who were treated with it back in 2016 who are currently alive and healthy today.
It’s 12 weeks of daily injections (or pills, although they’re more expensive and may not work as well) followed by 12 weeks of observation. You do a blood test every month. There’s a giant facebook group dedicated to getting this med to people who assigns you to an admin when you request to join. You have to show your cat was diagnosed with fip and your admin is the only one allowed to give you medical advice. It sounds horrible to be buying a treatment from a facebook page but vets legally cannot dispense non fda approved medication in case of lawsuits.
It’s dosed based off initial symptoms (dry verses wet fip) and your cats unique case as well as weight but for a standard case of wet fip, it costs anywhere from $1,500 ish for a kitten starting it to $3,000 or so for a 9 pound cat. Some cats need more, some need less. The group will even help you to fundraise and has a lot of people whose cats have graduated who happily donate and your admin answers any medical questions + helps you find a vet in your area who will oversee this treatment. A vet might tell you that there’s no hope and you should say goodbye to an FIP cat because they dont know or trust the treatment but there are thousands of people with still living cats years after having FIP. If your cat gets on this early enough and you can afford a full round of treatment, they have a damn good shot at getting cured.
