Symptoms and forms of FIP
There are several forms of feline infectious peritonitis: wet (effusion), dry and mixed.
Signs of all forms include:
- fever that doesn’t respond to antibiotics;
- anorexia;
- vomit;
- weight loss up to malnutrition or poor weight gain in kittens and young animals;
- pale mucous membranes due to anemia;
- liver damage, accompanied by yellowness of the mucous membranes;
- renal failure, kidney enlargement and lethargy.
Wet FIP is present in up to 80% of FIP cases due to a vasculopathy (the effusion can be abdominal, pleural and/or pericardial). Cats with fluid in the chest experience labored breathing. Cats with fluid in the abdomen show increasing, nonpainful abdominal distension.
Dry FIP is caused by the presence of small buildups of inflammatory cells, granuloma formation in various organs. It is typically associated with neurological and/or ocular signs (e.g uveitis).
Wet FIP
The symptoms of the effusion form of FIP usually develop and progress relatively rapidly with fluid accumulation in body cavities.
The effusion can be:
abdominal (ascites),
and/or pleural (pleurisy),
and/or pericardial (pericarditis).
Dry FIP
Damage to the nervous system, convulsions, impaired coordination of movements, wobbliness, changes in behavior (with a dry form and granulomatous inflammatory brain damage) - about 10% of all cases of non-effusive FIP occur with neurological symptoms.
Dry FIP
In some cases, characteristic eye changes are observed: a change in the color of the iris, hemorrhage in the anterior chamber of the eye or clouding, spots on the posterior surface of the cornea.
