Ill Kitten, Vet scared me with all the abbreviated illinesses! Any ideas?

Question

Hello,

I have a 5 and and half month girl house (not yet old enough to be spayed) kitten. A few weeks ago she had symptons in her eyes where her inner eyelids were not retracting properly and had runny stools. I took her to the vet and they gave her 1 weeks anitboitcs. This seemed to clear it all up.

However, a fews days a go I noticed that her inner eyelids were again not retracting fully and that they were slightly inflammed. I took her to the vet on Sat. The vet suggested that she has some blood tests done to rule out various cat diseases. The vet used about 3 abbreviated terms for the things they were testing for. FIP, FPL, PLF (or somethings sounding like that) I havent a clue what they mean or what diseses they stood for, as i was too worrried about my kitten. Does anybody on here know what the disease the vet was testing for, as I would like to do some research, as I have another adult male (indoor/outdoor) fixed cat.

i am very worried about her. She acts normal, has a full appetite, drinks nornally, plays and fights normally. Her coat is soft and glossy.

Other than her eyelids she shows no obvious signs of being ill.

Has anybody experienced this before?

Answer 1

I'm sorry your vet has been less than informative. As a vet nurse I get to talk to a lot of owners who have been left confused by all the vetspeak. Never be afraid to ask your vet exactly what they mean or to chat to someone, maybe a nurse, who can help explain things in plain english.

It sounds like your vet has examined your cat, muttered a bunch of things relating to the illnesses they want to rule out. All the dieases you have mentioned can cause the symptoms you have gone to the vets about and they are the more serious ones. The vet will examine the possibilities and systematically rule things out to arrive at the right course of treatment- the differential diagnosis, although I am surprised not to see any signs of testing for some of the other more common causes of such symptoms.

Please make sure all your healthy cats are up to date with all their vaccinations, this will help protect them from a lot of things which could cause these symptoms. Not all, but many.

1.FIP

FIP stands for feline infectious peritonitis. It is NOT actually infectious. It is considered a serious mutation of another diarrhoea causing virus- coronavirus, which ARE infectious- common colds are often coronaviruses. There are two types- wet (also called effusive) and dry (non effusive). Wet is usually considered faster in onset, so fast that there is often no time for any treatment. If your cat is diagnosed with this I'm sorry to say she will not survive.  Treatment is for the symptoms to try to prolong life, and to ease suffering at the end.

Wet FIP's symptoms include fluid accumulation in the abdomen and/ or chest, fever, weight loss, diarrhoea, jaundice. With dry FIP there is no fluid accumulation, the other symptoms are similar and there can be neurological and/ or eye related symptoms. There is no specific test for FIP, a series of tests need to be run and some vets often presume FIP in all cases presenting symptoms until they have all the results in.

I've nursed a few wet FIP cases briefly before euthanasia, but only ever seen one dry FIP case who had a few comfortable months before I left the practice. I don't know how that case went.

2.FPL is feline panleucopaenia. It causes changes in the white blood cells which are also characteristic of distemper in dogs, which earned it the early name of “feline distemper” or feline parvovirus, and is also known more correctly as feline infectious enteritis (FIE).

Unfortunately mortality rates in young cats are high. Usually kittens under six months develop “peracute disease”, which is a very sudden and violent onset of symptoms resulting in death within 24 hours. Its symptoms are similar to FIP- fever, depression, weight loss, diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal discomfort. This IS infectious, and there ARE preventative vaccines available for your other cat, these are included in the regular vaccination schedules for cats. With aggressive treatment with fluid therapy, blood transfusions, antibiotics, b-vitamins and drugs to control vomiting and diarrhoea cats do survive. I've only seen FIE once, and that was a successful treatment in the end, though it took a lot of work and treatment.

3.PLF.  Am not sure what PLF is exactly. It is not an abbreviation I recognise. It may refer to something like the adenoviruses, there are also “PLF”s in oncology and there are PLF antibodies. I'm sorry I'm not able to help more with this one. Perhaps having a chat with the nurses at your vets might get some answers.

Your vets have mentioned some scary illnesses to you, and its easy to google them and convince yourself of the worst. At the same time it would be wrong of your vet not to be honest with you that this could be something life-threatening. There are many things that cause the same or similar symptoms that your vet will be able to rule out already or might get to later- feline chlamydia would be on my lab forms based on your description, as well as a few other things.

If you want some more in-depth information for yourself I would recommend textbooks over googling. Textbooks have to go through the editorial process, so people check the information is accurate and up to date whereas the internet is a free for all. Try the “veterinary notes for...[cat] owners” series of books, or a similar title. Some of the nurse training textbooks are in very accessible language and not vetspeak, maybe your vets can let you borrow something? Try to be brave and don't panic, I hope this turns out to be something non- serious that maybe just needed a different spectrum of treatment.

Answer 2

anytime that your vet uses abbreviations or words you don't understand, don't be afraid to ask for him/her to explain their meaning and all.  

Answer 3

my cat had cat flu, did he say it might be that? runny eyes and sneezing

Answer 4

If you're in the USA, FPL = Feline Panleukopaenia Virus and is also known as FPV = Feline Parvovirus  (it's known in the UK as FIE or Feline Infectious Enteritis).  

http://www.fabcats.org/owners/feline_ent...

It causes severe diarrhoea and most cats die very quickly from it (I've seen young cats die within a couple of hours of showing symptoms) - your cat wouldn't be behaving normally if she had this disease.

FIP is harder to test for.  A vet can test the amount of Feline Coronavirus in the blood, but this won't necessarily mean a cat has FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis) as the disease is due to the way a cat's immunce system handles that virus.  The vet will test to see if she has been exposed to the virus or has high amounts of it in the blood.

http://www.fabcats.org/cat_group/policy_...

FIP can cause the symptoms you've seen, but so can many other infections.  Hopefully he will be able to rule it out.

Chlamydia can also cause those symptoms

http://www.fabcats.org/owners/chlamydoph...

It's most often seen in the eyes, but can affect the intestines as well.

By testing, the vet can find out whether it's a virus or a bacterial infection and can decide which would be the most effective treatment.  Antibiotics only work against bacteria and not all antibiotics affect all types of bacteria.

Answer 5

This is all I could find on those abbreviations

Feline panleukopenia virus (FPL), sometimes called feline distemper, is common and can affect cats of any age. It's almost impossible to prevent exposure, so all cats should be vaccinated.

The FPL virus can affect many parts of a cat's body, causing fever, appetite loss, vomiting diarrhea, dehydration, weakness, tremors, and incoordination. Death can occur within a week. Three-fourths of the kittens that get FPL die; about half of older infected cats die.

Vaccinations for FPL should be given every year, but kittens less than 12 weeks old are given two to three doses several weeks apart.

Answer 6

FIP = Feline Infectious Peritonitis...not sure on the others..

sorry to hear your kitten is poorly but why not call the vet or nurse and ask him to explain about these blood tests and for some information about them

hope she will be ok

Answer 7

One of my cats, now nearly 2 years old, had the same thing for the first 12 months of her life, he third eyelids, or haws, were always showing, although there was no sign of inflammation.

At the time I was giving my cats kitten milk along with their food, and although the other 2 were fine, Linux's eyes always looked awful although they didn't appear to cause her any problem, she just looked completely insane and wired the whole time.

I took her to the vet a number of times about it, and after about 4 visits we found that it was probably due to the kitten milk.  When a cat has digestive problems they often show themselves by causing the third eyelids to be visible.  As soon as I stopped giving her kitten milk, her eyes were fine.  They do still sometimes look a bit 'wrong' but now we know it's just because she's eaten something that didn't agree with her, providing she's acting normally (she's a complete mentalist, never sits still, you'd soon know if there was something wrong with her!) then we leave her body to sort itself out.

Answer 8

Maybe you should give your vets a call and ask them to remind you what the tests were for and what these things stand for. Your vet should understand that you are not a vet and do not know what these abbreviations mean!