Lorazipam for travel

I've already discussed this with my vet, so this is me just being really paranoid at this point, so I was wondering if anyone had any experience with giving a cat lorazipam for sedation during travel. We are moving in a few days and will take about 10 days to get to our new house. We're traveling with 11 cats, and one of them freaks out like you wouldn't believe in the car. The other 10 do pretty well. The one who freaks out, also has a heart murmur, though as of 6 months ago, no other signs of heart disease (she's been to a cardiologist).

I know that if sedatives can be avoided then they should be, but for Samantha, it seems that when she is calmer, her heart murmur also is. When it was initially heard by my regular vet, it was graded as a 3-4, and she was freaking out at the time. The drive to the cardiologist was an hour long drive, so we sprayed Feliway all over her carrier in an attempt to calm her down and she did seem to be calmer that time. The cardiologist graded the murmur as a 1-2 and told us that it may have sounded worse initially because her little heart was pumping so quickly, due to her not being calm.

So as we move we're going to spray the carrier with Feliway each day again, but after talking to the vet, we decided that adding a sedative that wouldn't interact with her heart would also be a good idea. So the vet prescribed lorazipam and said that it shouldn't have any interactions with her heart murmur. I do trust my vet, but I'm also a paranoid person so I was just hoping to hear someone else's experience with lorazipam - good or bad.

I lost a cat to undiagnosed heart disease a little over a year ago and I have been paranoid ever since. I can't get the thought of Samantha's heart murmur out of my mind, even though as of right now, her heart seems to be fine otherwise, so I'm just a little nervous about giving her any type of medicine to calm her down. But at the same time I am terrified that by NOT giving her any type of sedative, then her heart will be beating way too fast, which may end up causing more problems in the end. So has anyone used lorazipam for their cat before? (whether your cat has a heart murmur or not, I'm still interested to hear your experience)

10 days with 11 cats?! Good luck, I do not envy you!

I've only once traveled with kitties - two young adult fairly well adjusted males. They flew (in the airplane w/ me). When flying I know they do not advise sedatives, but I don't know that the same reasoning holds true when driving.

I have no purrsonal experience with it, but I would think that she would benefit from some kind of anti-anxiety drug for traveling & continued once you arrive while she adjusts to the new home to keep stress levels as low as possible.

Trust the vet on this one. He/She is not going to give you a registered narcotic unless he feels it is absolutely necessary. And 11 days of getting to where you are going is necessary.

While I am not a furry creature, I will share that I take that same drug for panic attacks. Which I would think is similar to what your cat is having with the increased heartbeats. All it does is calm me down. So if the doseage is right for kitty, and it is safe for kitty consumption, I think it is more humane to give it to her, then to leave her without it.

Cats don't always react in predictable ways to sedatives. I would at least do a trial run BEFORE traveling with the lorazipam.

I will never sedate a cat during travel again, having had a bad experience where the cat's personality was changed permanently. If I were you I'd go with my gut on this, and if you don't want to give him the lorazipam, don't. A 1-2 grade heart murmur is not that serious.

Use Rescue Remedy instead.

I am not a vet.

Most cats only go on shorter trips and will cry or howl the whole way. Yes, we humans feel bad and think we are torturing them.

I would be concerned that if you have the kitties in an area that will not be right with you, she could have a reaction and you would not find out about an emergency until you stopped to check on her. The other issue is even if something might work one time, that would not necessarily mean there won't be issues at another time. You would need to map our vet offices and emergency offices all along the route just in case of emergency.

I have found that when cats have to travel for hours, they will settle down and sleep in their carriers.

Good luck on your journey!