stopping cisapride

Have spent a lot of money on enemas and vet visits these last two months. Our vet for over fifteen years said to put our eight year old male down. I didn't want to do that. Took him to the emergency vet, she put him on cisapride three times a day plus miralax twice a day. He is going to the bathroom fine now. Can I wean him off the cisapride, Kind of afraid to take him back to our vet. We are feeding wet food and a little dry. Have three fountains around the house, is there any advice for me.

I would call the emergency vet who prescribed the cisapride and ask. It sounds like the cisapride or miralax or combination is really helping him, so while you may be able to experiment to see if he is ok on miralax alone, if stopping the cisapride brings back the constipation, then he may need some cisapride as well. It's really hard to know

Welcome to TCS! 

Sorry to hear about your Kitty's trouble.

What brands / flavors of canned food are you feeding now?

I would try to eliminate the dry food, and add a little warm water to the canned food...

that works best with pate type foods, but you could add it to any type.

ALSO, have you tried Probiotics?

Good bacteria in his digestive tract can only help.

If you search "Probiotics" you will find some threads which discuss brands.

I just use a human grade probiotic in capsules and open them and add it to their canned food.

Best wishes and please keep us posted!  

There are many, many ways to approach chronic constipation.

Did your vet say what they thought was the reason behind the constipation?

Cisapride improves gut motility, so there is the chance that if you stop the cisapride he'll get stuck again. That being said, cisapride does have negative effects in that it disrupts the body's natural bowel movement and after years of usage will cause the natural bowel movements to stop. When I took my cat off cisapride, the vet did say to wean her.

How hard was your cat's stool? Is the problem with gut motility? Dehydration? How much stool comes out?  Please provide more details as to his condition and history.

Excellent advice from SevenWonders, hydration is key.

I'm really going to go all wet after Thanksgiving. Thank you for your reply.