New kitty with violent feline hyperesthesia....support please!

Hi everyone.

A week ago I decided to adpot a stray who has been hanging out in my yard for about 2 months....he showed up one night with a bloody tail and I decided that was the moment to take him to the vet and then- into my home!

The first 48 hours were bliss....he is a young sterlized male, grey, with  thumbs...a puddle of love and cuddles.

During the week we have been back to the vet 4 times, and once to the emergency clinic ($$$!!!) with a horribly bleeding tail and extreme stress, and agitation. I decided to look online and found out about Feline Hyperethesia, and the vet concurred (quickly thank god) and we started him on meds today.

He's taking amitriptaline and diazepam....this may seem harsh to some of you, i don't know much about it, i showed up at the emergency clinic begging them to sedate him.

His behaviour has escalated over the past 3 days....his poor mangled tail, I can`t even bear to look at it...he is just a ball of anxiety and stress.....and then there are moments, in bed where he curls up agaisnt me and just purrs and purrs. He jumps into my lap for comfort all the time.

I've heard the amitriptyline can turn him into a little zombie....i'm sort of praying for this as we both need a break. I am stressed to the limit, teary, shaky, exhausted....I can imagine this is just what he (Ichabod, by the way) is going through.

He is on:

Amitriptyline- 0.5 mg a day

diazepam 0.05mg a day

In the past 24 hours he has had three severe bites to his poor suffering tail. Which he can get to despite the e collars, so since they stress him out we leave them off.

The vet says we can hope to see changes within 24 hours, or up the dosage.

Please let me know there is hope. i hope so much this is the right thing. I dont want him to suffer! We are both suffering right now and its not right, i was ready to let him go but since the meds were so cheap I thought his life was worth a 18$ chance....oh god i hope it works.

We both can't go on like this.

I promised Ichabod I would help him, whatever that means.

If there is anything, any hope or comfort you can share, please.

Hi - I totally know what you are going thru.  I was there about 1 1/2 years ago.  My long drawn out horrors are posted in past posts if you want to search my name.   My Tucker has FHS which I had to diagnose because none of the vets I took him to could tell me what was wrong with him.  If your vet knows about FHS then you are ahead of the game.  

Tucker is on amitriptyline and it worked wonderfully!  Be patient, it does take about a week for it to build up enough in their system.  I never gave my Tucker diazepam so I can't speak to that, but I do know the amitriptyline does work if you give it time.  You may want to up the dose just for a while if you aren't seeing any results.  How many days has he been on it??  If I remember correctly, we started out at 1mg daily and then after a couple months I was able to taper down.  He now gets about .3 to .5 daily.  He gets it in a cream in his ear so the exact dosage probly changes slightly each day.  I tried giving him pills and that lasted about 2 days.  I got tired of fighting with him so we had it compounded into an ear cream.  I was also worried about the "zombie" issue.  My vet originally mentioned phenobarbitol, which I really didn't like the idea of.  So we tried the amitriptyline first and luckily it did work.  He never did get zombied out, but on a high dosage it may make him sleepy (not zombie, just normal kitty sleepy).    FYI, if your vet says you should amputate the tail and that "if there is no tail to bite, it will solve the problem"  DON'T listen!!  I made the huge mistake of letting 2 vets and my husband talk me into it and it did not help.  I have so much regret and guilt over it now, I can't even begin to tell you.  Please, please don't let them talk you into that.  

I know dealing with FHS in its early stages is really scary and stressful.  Hang in there.  If you want to talk privately, just email me.

Well, how thoroughly was the bloody tail itself examined....before anyone went looking for differential diagnoses?

Was it radiographed/scanned?

Translation: are we absolutely certain that the tail itself has not been injured and that it is not resulting periodic pain which is causing these spasms of biting?

Yes, that was the first vet visit- tail was shaved, physically examined and xray-d. But they did tell me that nerve pain won't show in an xray.

When he is on pain medication, he bothers less with the end of this tail, yet still exhibits the shaking head, jumpiness, pacing, twitchy back.

Theres something going on with feeding time.

This is 3 times in a row that feeding has triggered an episode. He obsesses about the dish, goes back to check it, runs to me, goes back to check it....I tried playing with him to break up that cycle I saw starting up in his head. How am I supposed to feed him without a freakout. He did open up his tail again- now that it is shaved I guess there is nothing to protect it! So there are more blood streaks on the floor and blood on the bed and blood all over.

The past 3 days he has been eating Evo Duck canned food....when I noticed he had 2 reactions in a row after eating I put him on the wellness grain free salmon.

Just before this last feeding and attack we had a nice hour and a half of snuggle time, where he was tucked up in my arms and sleeping so nicely- even purred a little.

The diazepam is supposed to act quickly to ease him along until the amitriptalyne kicks in.

Thank you so much Tina23. Seeing him suffer is really really hard. I feel like death warmed over.

I know that I have to give it a few days before it works.

I so do not look forward to the next feeding at 10pm.

Scary.

It's been a couple days now, how is Ichabod doing?