Help our cat Ravioli!!

Our adorable cat, Ravioli, was recently diagnosed with "Feline Infectious Peritonitous" (FIP). It is a fatal disease that usually occurs with kittens- however Ravioli is 7 years old, making this very rare. There is very little known about FIP. FIP causes inflammation in his organs, which causes loss of appetite, diarrhea, lethargy, and vomiting. There is no cure, no 100% effective treatment, and all we can do is keep him comfortable This website provides a lot of good information about the disease.

Keeping him comfortable involves multiple vet trips a week so he can receive fluids, shots, and medication. We decided to treat Ravioli 's FIP with a newer drug - Polyprenyl Immunostimulant (PI). Ravioli's FIP was diagnosed very early, which improves the chances of the PI's effectiveness. You can read about the studies done by Dr. Legendre of University of Tennessee on PI here.

This link will take you to a very good news story about FIP research and PI.

Now that we have him on the PI, if he responds to it, we will need to continue to keep him on the PI - giving it to him three times a week, which will be expensive.

I am asking for donations to not only help Ravioli, but also so that if this new drug does work for him - it will give us a chance to share Ravioli's story with other FIP cat owners. We will be able to tell them about this drug and *hopefully* tell them that this drug did increase the well being of our cat while living with FIP. Possibly it will prolong his life as well. Maybe our kitty will even be able to be added to the PI Hall of Fame. The PI Hall of Fame is a list of kitties that have been living with FIP on PI for over a year. One cat in the Hall of Fame has been living for six years! Dr. Legendre - the man who has done the studies on PI for FIP - includes kitties only if they have a very thorough record of diagnoses - which would include many more tests than what we can afford now.

Thank you for reading Ravioli's story. I hope you had time to read a little bit about FIP - especially if you have a cat of your own. It is a very strange, complicated disease that I had not heard of before. Getting the word out about this disease is also another step to helping other kitties as well. The following links are to some other websites dedicated to FIP.

http://www.winnfelinehealth.org/pages/briafund.html
http://www.sockfip.info/">http://www.sockfip.info/


**Any money that we don't spend on vet bills will be donated to FIP research!