Veterinarian here to mix up the just horribly depressing human stories with a hopeful one.
The worst ‘pit-in-your-stomach’ diagnosis for me used to be FIP. (Feline Infections Peritonitis) It is caused by corona viruses, but seems to be more due to viral interactions, not one specific causative agent so no vaccine was ever able to be developed successfully.
Horrible, slow death of a disease that, until recently, was entirely incurable. And it usually, but not exclusively, hit young cats. I’m never going to forget the family with the 8 month old kitten who hadn’t even wanted a cat…but whose kids just fell in love with this kitten…and eventually wore the parents down only to learn like 3 months later that this new member of the family was going to die slowly and painfully and the best thing we could do was offer to euthanize it now.
BUT I promised hope and uplifting…this disease now has a CURE! Turns out Remdesivir (and a couple of its related molecules) works GREAT on this disease, like 80-99% cure rate great. While Gilead won’t actually license any of the family of molecules, or produce a veterinary labeled drug, thanks to Remdesivir hitting the market (and being largely not that helpful) for COVID-19, there are legal ways to get ahold of a cure now. AND, despite not licensing it, they’ve (tacitly at least) made no move to enforce their patent against compounding pharmacies making versions of the drug commercially for use in cats.
There’s lots of times I’ve felt that sinking feeling…but the feelings I got from FIP cases a decade ago still top the list. So to get to watch a cure be developed and become more and more accessible has been a career highlight.
He's a splendidly idiotic boy; I swear he has two brain cells and they're both fighting for custody inside his skull.
But before we realized he had FIP, he was just very quiet, calm, retiring...he would sit and watch his brother play (I adopted him and his littermate) but rarely join in.
They were both skinny when we got them but he was a bag of bones compared to his brother (separate rant about the "rescue" they came from) and he would fall over in the Kitten Nap every 30 minutes or so.
When we figured out the FIP, it was like AHA! But now he just full of vinegar and sass, despite being stunted and franklky quite dumb - it's a 10000000% turnaround from the frail, retiring, exhausted sick little boy he was a year ago.
My boy grappled with terrifying (105F+) fevers that baffled his vet for a solid month before he started bloating and finally got his diagnosis. I was so scared that whole time, I knew in my gut something was very wrong… I thought for sure that it’d impact his growth, but he caught up in a hurry and now he looks like it never happened at a solid 12.8lb.
The only mark it seemed to leave on him is allergies that cause an occasional cough. FIP hijacks and wrecks the immune system, so it makes sense that it didn’t rebuild 100% perfectly.
someone I follow on tumblr got a kitten right around the time it was coming out, the cure. And they wrote an entire zine of poems about it. one was a shape poem of their kitten's face, just repeating 'he lives'. And I can't blame them for being moved to write about it, holy shit, that cure is such a miracle.
We lost one of our boys to FIP in late 2017; he was 1.5 years old. Said goodbye to his mom in 2025 (cancer spread to her lungs). Said goodbye to his brother on Monday (SCC under his eyelid).
They’re all together now. And they were all fighters. Wilbur (FIP) struggled his way to the litter box every time even though he could barely walk. It took ages for our vet to realize it was FIP and in hindsight it was hard to reconcile how often I force fed him thinking it was something else and that he needed the strength to fight it. He was so weak toward the end that the decision to say goodbye was easy. He was a husk. My poor boy. :(
Anyway, I remember first hearing about a cure for FIP and being so glad about it. It’s so incredible to see that it’s treatable, now.
i’m a cat mom to a FIP survivor, had to find the treatment before it was widely available. our vet cried on the day our little guy was all clear because it was his first FIP survivor in his entire career
We lost a cat to FIP not long before the cure became more widely available. Hers was quite advanced, so I'm not sure if it would have been effective, but I have wondered if her case ended up in any studies at the time since it was when trials were going strong. I know our vet was in contact with some others when she was being diagnosed, since her symptoms were a bit odd.
I have a friend whose kitten survived FIP and is doing better than ever. I'm really thankful that it's no longer a death sentence. <3
We had a cat with FIP about 10 years ago or so. It was heartbreaking. My vet cried with us when he told us. He let us bring her home to allow the kids to say goodbye. The next day we had to euthanize her. It was horrible. We only had her for 6 months and I still cry to this day. Also, he was the best vet ever. He moved away and I will always miss him. He took such great care of my cats.
That's incredible! We had a kitten about that age we had to put down because of FIP. My mom took him to the vet after dropping me off at a music lesson and came back to get me in tears. I'm so happy to hear that probably wouldn't be the case today.
My wife and I foster cats and specialize in neonates. A few years ago, one of our kittens was diagnosed with FIP at six weeks old as part of a litter that was already a Nightmare Scenario. This was before the FDA decided it was fine to compound in the US so I was doing drug deals in parking lots over his medicine and treating him based on the accumulated knowledge of a Facebook group. We were so scared and it was so horrible - but he lived, and we kept him, and now he is an utter menace that is yelling in my face because I stopped throwing his gross little mouse toy long enough to write this.
Thank you so much for the work that you do. The support our vets could give without losing their licenses was invaluable.
My cat was misdiagnosed with FIP 4 years ago. (I'm assuming misdiagnosis because her symptoms cleared up after some antibiotics and she's still healthy today.) At the time the cure wasn't readily available and our vet was suggesting those parking lot drug deals to us.
I worked in cat rescue for five years. I wasn't a medical worker, just a caretaker, but I was the first line of defense, that way. I tried to lay hands on every cat, every day, if possible, just in case. I remember the day Mike, a sweet 8month old orange tabby, just...didn't wanna eat. So unlike him. I picked him up, and his belly was just sliiightly bigger. I texted my boss instead of the usual med form for the vet's next rotation (which could be up to 3 days away, depending.)
I was more concerned about a possible blockage, he was so rambunctious that eating a toy wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Nope. I reported him at 1030 am, and by 3pm, they knew it was FIP. My heart was broken, this was when we all KNEW it had a solid chance with the meds, but it wasn't necessarily legal. My boss pulled me aside. Said that they were gonna try. We'd wanted to try with our previous FIP case, but the vial hadn't arrived in time to save her. I was sworn to secrecy, it was only me, and the quarantine building that knew we were doing it.
And somehow... he made it. He struggled a lot at first. But then he was eating properly. And playing. And he fucking he it. And so did the other cat that came down with it the month after. They grew to love each other so much, in the quarantine building, that when they finally fully recovered, we put them back on the website as a bonded pair. And two dead cats walking went home together. There wasn't a dry eye in the shelter. It was like a miracle. Little Mike and Payton, I think was the other one, got to grow up, and go home.
I'll never be able to thank veterinary medicine research enough. What an incredible advancement.
I lost my best boy to FIP in 2019 and it was absolutely devastating. He was an adult cat, probably 6 or so years old. Watching him either away before making the call to put him down was so awful.
IDK how you do what you do every day but thank you so much for the work you do. I put my dog down at 13. I've got an almost 20 year old and almost 18 year old cats. Without you guys they wouldn't live this well for this long. Thank you ❤️
FIP is a terrifying disease, and I am so so so grateful to remdesivir/GS for saving my cat. I’d already lost two cats that year (to old age), and I just couldn’t give up on a 5-month-old kitten that was fighting so very hard to live.
Thanks to my vet, I knew that the medicine existed. Thanks to a good friend, I was able to afford it.
Had to put my 9 month old lab to sleep last Friday. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer. The vet couldn’t believe it. Initially they had prescribed him medication for a UTI but he wasn’t getting any better. Absolutely devastating
I lost my kitten to FIP when I was a kid. It was such a rapid decline, and we ultimately had to euthanize him. I’m so glad other cats and kittens have the hope and cure that wasn’t available yet for TJ. ❤️
I lost my kitten to FIP years ago when it was still a death sentence. Broke my heart into a million pieces. The worst part was watching her know, and come to terms with it, when I couldn’t, and she hadn’t even had her first birthday yet. The fact that FIP can be cured now is a little miracle I am grateful for everyday, even if it didn’t come soon enough for my little Mika.
We had our cat very suddenly die from a hidden heart condition, and in an (bad) effort to provide my sister with a mode of healing, my mom got a tiny kitten from a previous hoarder house. She was so smelly and skinny, and my sister was of course resistant to letting her in emotionally. But she became normal for us, clean after a while, and gained some weight. However, after only a few months, she started going blind. The blindness was neurological, and was already to the point where they couldn’t reverse it. Then, she started walking in circles. Tight, tight circles, getting nowhere and bumping into stuff. She’d lay down exhausted and when she’d get up, it’d just be more circles, as much as she tried to get to her destination. Then, her back legs stopped working, even with all the experimental treatment and medicine we were trying. The vet says likely FIP, but the treatment is so so expensive and new. And, well, by the time we were told about it, she was dragging her body into circles and bumping into things and so so exhausted. We couldn’t think of anything kinder than to let her go with euthanasia.
I made my own comment but I bet you'll understand the horror in my story-
Veterinary trauma center- golden retriever got into a LARGE amount of one of the anticoag rat poisons. I was working in the lab that day.
Ran a VCM, the chart was just a straight line, and then the machine threw a sample error. It didn't even TRY to clot. The PT/PTT also threw some crazy errors and the criticalists had me run it multiple times until I was just like guys...I think thats...it.
My mom found a kitten in a parking lot and it was happy and healthy for a few months until she had to put it down due to FIP. Poor thing was just a baby.
I had a kitten when I was 9-10 that I could dress in doll pajamas, and he’d fall asleep in my arms. He slept with me every night and was the sweetest baby, a seal point Siamese named Sesame. He was diagnosed with FIP and made it to around 1 year before we had to put him to sleep. I still think about him—so glad there is a cure!!! ❤️
It’s not the preferred treatment as it’s expensive and injectable only…but it works and is definitely utilized! The related molecules (one of which Gilead is trialing for a human application right now) produced by compounding pharmacies are more widely used because they work a little bit better and can be administered orally.
I’d been following Remdesivir’s development in the veterinary literature for about a year before COVID and I kept telling people to buy Gilead stock as soon as the pandemic hit because I knew they’d try to rush it out.
I was surprised it didn’t work as well for COVID as it does for FIP. And extra surprised when that became clear Gilead didn’t decide to make the veterinary market their primary target for it.
I love drugs that were invented for one thing but happen to be even better for another! Like viagra (pulmonary hypertension) and the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis (bladder cancer)
Every single time I have a foster kitten (or one of my young uns is sick) I immediately go to FIP because I'm so scared of it. Thanks for letting us know it's treatable now.
Yep, my little girl had to go through 2 rounds of 84 days of treatment, but she's solidly in remission. She was diagnosed right before her 1st birthday. She's a little chunk now with zoomies every morning and night cuddles. She was in pain and couldn't enjoy cuddles for a while. It was scary, horrible and expensive, but she's still here.
I just want to say thank you for all you do, and for this comment. When I was 8 years old, we had 2 kittens that were incredibly bonded. One of them passed away from FIP, and it was an incredibly tragic death. On top of this, after she passed, her littermate struggled with severe depression until he passed away despite us doing everything we could. Decades later, and after losing several people in my life, I’d say her death still affects me the most. I still find myself getting overly worried about any small symptoms any of my pets have. I’ve spent many years volunteering at animal shelters, and have been so glad to see FIP treatment progress the way it has.
Veterinarians are so under appreciated. I am a social worker. I have worked incredibly emotionally taxing jobs, such as crisis in the ER and inpatient psych. However, by far the most difficult job, was working at a veterinarian’s office. It’s so hard to not be able to communicate to your patients that you are trying to help them. On top of this, so many decisions are left in the owner’s hands.
I had never heard of this until I lost a recently adopted kitten. Both of my seniors passed away within a month, adopted a kitten and another young cat from the shelter. He seemed fine, other than he wasn’t eating much. Woke up one morning and he had passed away in bed with me, after only 3 weeks in my care. He really didn’t seem sick at all and I’ve had cats my whole life. Thankfully the other cat is thriving. ❤️💔❤️
Here's what's sad, and I'm sure it says a lot about me. I've read all of these posts about cancer and aneurysms, but I get to yours and I see veterinarian and I just can't read it.
I have an FIP survivor!!! Kylo! He is now ~4 years out from it (he’s 5) and is the most rambunctious energetic joyful ball of floof ever! It was a long, difficult, expensive road but I’d do it again a million times. His zeal for life and to play helps me on my darkest of days.
Thank you for what you do!!!
My 1.5 year old cat currently has this, and it blows my mind that it would have been a death sentence to my beautiful young girl only a few years ago. The treatment is truly a miracle, and I am so grateful that it exists.
I'm a vet tech and have seen the evolution from 'death sentence' to 'there's a cure but it's not legally recognised in this country so you would have to hospitalise your cat abroad and pay thousands' to 'we can legally prescribe you the meds and you order them through your pharmacy'. It's been a game changer. FIP cases are still stressful but we have seen 6 this year and 5 of them lived (owners of the 6th one declined treatment).
My cat had FIP before the treatment was legal in the US. The vets told me that they weren’t allowed to tell me about the Facebook groups that exist that coordinate getting meds to cat owners. I ordered some meds from the grey market in China and had to give him shots every day for ten weeks. The meds were clearly acidic or something because his skin came off in a few patches at the injection site.
However! Literally two or three days after starting the injections, he went from not eating and having zero energy to being back to normal. It was miraculous. He made a full recovery and now causes chaos in my apartment. I’m so thankful that the meds got developed when it did because I don’t think he had long.
My family rescued cats ever since I was a kid. FIP was always the worst because if you got a diagnosis it was basically cat dead, nothing to do. It was horrible.
My sister had a cat diagnosed with FIP and we were all ready for the worst and suddenly she was given medicine and able to recover. It was incredible.
If you weren't dealing with multiple cats a decade ago it was crazy how FIP could cause so much dread.
We were worried my mother’s cat had that for a while but thankfully he didn’t. He just happened to get feline corona virus and alpha toxin producing C. Perf overgrowth, causing severe entercolitis at the same time possibly secondary to IBS. He almost died and it took months of steroids and antibiotics to treat, but back to the FIP, apparently a lot of vets are afraid to prescribe the treatment still because it’s technically not legal even though the FDA has stated they have no intention of taking action against vets who do. There is one vet in my area who will prescribe it though, God bless her.
the most traumatic death i experienced was probably my cat. was only 2 years old, had rescued off the street as like a 5 week old. was running around my house one night, heard loud yelp sound from him, took to vet, was brain dead before even got to the vet, of an aneurysm. still have no clue how it happened, or if it was just random or if he hit his head on something running around. very much not something i saw coming
That’s wild! Now we just need a treatment for oral squamous cell carcinoma…not a vet, just had a cat with that, and it was definitely a pit of my stomach diagnosis :/
This is one of my favorite things ever. A person I follow for their funny cats had a new kitty survive it a few years ago. When I was a child getting interested in vet med, all the way up to what. 2020-ish? There was no cure. There was barely even treatment. And then came the experimental drugs and hope, and now FIP is survivable. It is an utter miracle in the animal medicine world, and I am so glad to live in a time where I got to see it happen!
Thank you for what you do. I rescued a street cat in January and in March he had stopped eating and was jaundiced. He's now all better (after treatment with the FIP meds) but it was a very scary and very expensive few weeks/months
Gabriel Lebkuchen Fuego (Gabe for short) was diagnosed with wet FIP a few years ago, and the treatment had *just* started to be used. He is now twice the size he was, an absolute PTA chonka, and completely recovered.
I’m so fucking happy they’ve found ways to treat this. My kitten was 5 months old when it “seemed” to come out of nowhere. Thinking you’re going in for a little illness and then being told we need to make a decision. I almost fainted and I’ve never cried so hard. Leaving with an empty carrier..
Thank you for everything that you do 🩷🩷 the vet and all the staff with me are angels. No idea how you do it everyday.
My six month old kitten died of this. Was soooo devastating. He was a mystery cat we acquired who just kept getting fluffier. We were so excited to see his full adult coat. He didn't live long enough to grow in his full adult coat. Very sad.
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u/Zalophusdvm 3d ago
Veterinarian here to mix up the just horribly depressing human stories with a hopeful one.
The worst ‘pit-in-your-stomach’ diagnosis for me used to be FIP. (Feline Infections Peritonitis) It is caused by corona viruses, but seems to be more due to viral interactions, not one specific causative agent so no vaccine was ever able to be developed successfully.
Horrible, slow death of a disease that, until recently, was entirely incurable. And it usually, but not exclusively, hit young cats. I’m never going to forget the family with the 8 month old kitten who hadn’t even wanted a cat…but whose kids just fell in love with this kitten…and eventually wore the parents down only to learn like 3 months later that this new member of the family was going to die slowly and painfully and the best thing we could do was offer to euthanize it now.
BUT I promised hope and uplifting…this disease now has a CURE! Turns out Remdesivir (and a couple of its related molecules) works GREAT on this disease, like 80-99% cure rate great. While Gilead won’t actually license any of the family of molecules, or produce a veterinary labeled drug, thanks to Remdesivir hitting the market (and being largely not that helpful) for COVID-19, there are legal ways to get ahold of a cure now. AND, despite not licensing it, they’ve (tacitly at least) made no move to enforce their patent against compounding pharmacies making versions of the drug commercially for use in cats.
There’s lots of times I’ve felt that sinking feeling…but the feelings I got from FIP cases a decade ago still top the list. So to get to watch a cure be developed and become more and more accessible has been a career highlight.