Help! My Cat Has A Bloated Stomach

Updated September 24, 2023

Essential facts (details below):

Causes Of A Swollen Belly In Cats

There are five likely causes for an enlarged abdomen in a young cat:

  • Intestinal worms, especially in untreated kittens up to three months of age
  • Pregnancy, in undesexed, free-roaming female cats
  • Abdominal fat deposition, which is usually easy to identify
  • Excessively large meals (swelling should come and go)
  • Feline infectious peritonitis or FIP
cat FIP recovery

However, only FIP is common in cats brought to the vet. This disease alone is estimated to cause the death of between 0.3 and 1.3% of cats worldwide.

Traditionally it’s been a death sentence. But it doesn’t have to any more. This picture shows the same cat after treatment.

Read on to learn more.

What Is FIP?

Feline infectious peritonitis is caused by a coronavirus that is one of the causes of diarrhoea in cats. For some, it’s a short-lived gastrointestinal or upper respiratory infection, whereas other cats become carriers. All you may notice is mild diarrhoea, but these cats will continue to pass large amounts of virus.

Coronavirus carriers can be easily identified with a faecal test, which both allows us to treat them better, and to isolate them from other cats. There is no risk from cats to people. Feline coronavirus is completely separate from the human strains such as COVID-19.

Virtually all coronavirus-positive cats never develop FIP. It’s a rare and tragic accident when it happens. Cats don’t catch FIP, they develop it. FIP occurs when that enteric coronavirus mutates into the FIP strain inside the infected cat.

FIP can happen to any cat but it’s more common in purebred and shelter kittens. That’s because these cats are kept at a higher concentration than strays, and therefore coronavirus is always more common in their environment.

Probably all the cats in contaminated premises catch coronavirus, most shake it off, around 13% become carriers and a smaller number get FIP. That’s no comfort if it’s one of your cats that’s affected.

Signs Of FIP In Cats

FIP comes in two forms, based on how the immune system responds. The effusive or wet form is most common, and is caused by the accumulation of large quantities of fluid in the abdomen and sometimes the chest.

Th wet form of FIP is mostly seen in kittens or young adults. Signs are:

  • A swollen belly or trouble breathing
  • Poor appetite and muscle loss
  • Lethargy and fever
  • A rough, staring coat

The cat pictured at the start is a good example. If you look closely you can see:

  • Wasting of the back muscles and a loose collar from weight loss
  • A swollen pot belly appearance and staring coat

If you noticed the yellowish skin, this cat is also jaundiced from high bilirubin levels. She’s much better now, thanks to the new treatment mentioned below.

The non effusive or dry form is less common and much slower. These cats also usually have a persistent fever, poor appetite, lethargy and weight loss. In addition, the FIP virus produces solid tumour-like granulomas around the body, most notably in the central nervous system and kidneys. Therefore, dry FIP is the great pretender. The symptoms will depend on the organ affected.

I have seen the dry form of FIP as either slowly growing abdominal lumps caused by enlarged lymph nodes or unexplained neurological disease. This could start as an unsteady gait, different sized pupils or a head tilt.

Diagnosis of FIP

The presence of a swollen belly in a young, sick cat is very suggestive of FIP, but to exclude other causes and confirm the diagnosis, further tests are always needed. These are:

  • A complete blood count and biochemistry: expect to see elevated globulins and possibly anaemia and high bilirubin
  • Abdominal tap: confirms the presence of fluid, which should be high in protein
  • Specific FIP tests: a PCR test for the FIP mutation in fluid or tissue biopsies is positive in around 70% of cases

No cat owner should attempt to make a diagnosis on their own. There are now many reports of cats being needlessly treated with antivirals (see below) resulting from incorrect home-diagnosis.

The biggest problem with FIP diagnosis is that it’s often very hard be 100% certain of the dry form. The only definitive test is a positive tissue biopsy, but these are very hard to obtain. Without one the diagnosis is about building up a case, piece by piece.

Treatment Of FIP

Traditional treatment of FIP has been supportive, using good nutrition, anti-inflammatories and attention to secondary infections. Tragically, the most important treatment has been timely euthanasia.

However, new treatments are rapidly changing the outlook for kittens and cats with FIP. More than ever, it’s important to get an early diagnosis so you can begin what might be lifesaving treatment for some cats.

Now read: Treatments For FIP In Kittens & Cats and especially Remdesivir Use In FIP-Infected Cats

Have something to add? Comments (if open) will appear within 24 hours.
By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.

14 Replies to “Help! My Cat Has A Bloated Stomach”

  1. I’ve adopted a 3 months old kitten. recently she is being sleep all the time and swollen belly and asks for food everytime I go near kitchen. I took her for X-Ray and Ultrasound, everything was normal but there was an unknown liquid inside of the abdominal area. I live in iran and vets aren’t that good and the new treatment GS44 is not available in iran. I don’t know is she a FIP case or not. I’m lost.

    1. Hi Jimmy. An abdomen containing excess fluid in a kitten is very likely to be FIP. Sorry, I cannot help you with the treatment.

  2. Hello my cat is 10yrs old female. She has a swollen belly. She is eatung,sleeping,pooping and urinating normal. If anything she has an increase in appetite lately. I have taken her to 2 vets and have done ultrasound. All organs are normal but the did find chainlink clusters but the fluid in belly by pathologist says it’s not malignant. The docs dont know what it can be. Can you help me?

    1. Hi Cecelia. Yours sounds like a very unusual case. The normal to increased appetite is a very good sign, but what it might be is hard to say. Certainly, fluid in the abdomen at any rate detectable by ultrasound is abnormal and usually indicates an important problem. As for what they mean by chainlink clusters, I’m guessing enlarged lymph nodes, which suggests some involvement of the immune system. FIP remains a possibility, but if that was the case, you should see an eventual loss in appetite.

  3. My 4 month old kitten has always had some belly issue and now its getting worse. She was the last in the litter to be weaned by at least a week because if she ate any type of food she would get sick late in the night. Always been very vocal will at times sense you near by and wether she be playing or napping she is gonna come up and start this almost yelling of a meow that usually stops once you pet her or rub her belly. Very affectionate in nature sheckc seems to enjoy having her belly rubbed gently. And normally playful the last week or so she just barely nibbles at the food and is much more lethargic. Her mom is a very picky eater and eats almost as if it hurts her front teeth to bite down.

  4. My 2 -month old kitten has swollen belly for the past 1 month. He is thin and only his belly is swollen. He was active till two days back. Now he sleeps a lot and only drinks his mother’s milk and water. he is struggling to poop. Can you tell me what the problem is?

    1. Hi Nayva. I can’t give you any more information than is in the article, but there is a reasonable likelihood of FIP.

  5. Hello someone help me please!
    My kitten is an exotic short hair 5 months old; he has been lethargic and developed a swallen belly. Took him to four different vets and no one knew what is wrong with him. Symptoms are lethargic, drinks too much water, diarrhea and swallen belly. One vet did blood test and fecal culture and said everything is normal . I don’t know what to do; he should be properly diagnosed as his health is deteriorating. Could someone help me please

    1. Hi Imra. Can I suggest an ultrasound examination – it will separate the common causes of an enlarged abdomen straight away.

  6. Hi, we recently adopted a kitten (oriental and now 4 months old) and after a week started to display lethargy, disinterest in the usual things, loss of appetite, down to one meal a day and fever. Now she has a swollen belly and a rough looking hair. The vet has said it is likely FIP but has given her antibiotics. We are considering taking her back to the breeder but do you think we should investigate tests?

    1. Hi Laura. It’s not too difficult these days to treat FIP and so I would advise you investigate both a diagnosis and then the treatment linked in this article. If you don’t have access to remdesivir, there are always the other drugs like GS – 441.

  7. I have a kitten 11 weeks old he has just had pop n saw a long string like worm do you know what kind of worm this is

    1. Hi Abbey. That should be a roundworm. They are easily treated with over the counter anti-wormers.

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