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- Feb 6, 2014
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I came across this site while Googling Depo Modrol and cat aggression, so I don't know how many users this may reach or if anyone can help, but I'm looking for insight...and a place called The Cat Site with this many posts in it's forum section can't be far wrong. Please bear with me because I have a story to tell, but I'm desperate and I'm seeking any insight that can be provided. There will be a lot here. I also want to preface by saying that I don't know what steroids my cat was given; the 2nd vet suggested Depo Modrol as being the most common.
I want to start off by saying Laina has been with me approximately 13 years. I'm not completely certain how old she is, but she's definitely around that age. She still has all of her claws, and she's never been particularly aggressive unless she smells a tomcat on me. She's not fond of that smell, so I've gotta be particularly cautious when dealing with strays. Running quickly by her and changing clothes and washing hands like a guilty lover is not unheard of in our relationship, lol. That being said, the rest of the time we have a loving relationship. She's not particularly a lapkitty, though she'll crawl there and lay when the mood strikes her.
Anyway, on to more recent matters. Over the last several weeks she had been slowly and steadily scratching herself, tearing out chunks of fur an leaving bloody gouges and rents in her skin. All of this was around the areas, whiskers and upper back area, and each new spot would be worse; larger and bloodier than the last. I did what I could to combat it with things like neosporin and peroxide, but ultimately I knew that I had to take her to the vet for a professional examination. I was afraid she had mites or fleas or something, but she's an indoor cat (who escapes periodically but is always swiftly brought back in).
January 21st I took her to the vet. Almost immediately they decided she had a food allergy to chicken, and told me this was not uncommon in cats as they age and have been eating chicken based foods routinely. They took a stool sample, but that was it. They took no blood, they ran no tests, and they advised that I change her food to something Rabbit, Duck or Venison based. They gave her two shots: one was a cortisone or something to help her with the pain, and the other was an antibiotic that they advised me would last for approximately 7 days; long enough to combat the existing food until I could get something better for her, and to help her heal in the meantime. I specifically asked about side-effects, and they told me 2 things: Increased eating/drinking, and increased urination.
So that was it. I took her home and noticed a nearly immediate improvement. She resumed regular grooming, stopped scratching herself bloody, and little by little the wounds began to heal.
This is where it gets "fun". Roughly 2 or 3 days after that, she was sitting in my lap, purring contentedly and half awake. She'd been this way for about 10-20 minutes. Between one stroke and the next however, she got flipped a switch and something changed. Purring disappeared, and she got that low growl that all cat owners recognize as leave me alone now...and it wasn't stopping. However she wasn't leaving my lap, and I slowly tried to move to get her off, and she ramped up immediately. I escaped with a few scratches, but she became a terror.
Hissing, shrieking, extremely loud yowling as if someone had stepped on her and was hitting her...stalking me and trying to attack me...and it stayed that way. I've heard of cat love-aggression, playful over-excitedness but please believe me when I tell you that this is not that. Fortunately, she seemed to be guarding the kitchen and felt some measure of safety there, so as long as I didn't come to close we could coexist successfully. Well, fortunately...but it *was* the kitchen she was standing sentry by, so that did pose it's own problems.
I let her be, thinking this was perhaps something that would pass, but it did not. By the second day she was considerably more aggressive, though she'd tone down temporarily when she was hungry - when I came back home she'd be meowling and just friendly enough that I could get the food for her...but once that was done, all bets were off.
By Day 3, she was arching and hissing if I so much as looked at her. I couldn't even get to the kitchen that final day to get her food.
The first time I called my vet about this, she told me this was a side-effect of the drugs they had given her, and that contrary to the 1 week they had initially told me, they would stay in her system for up to 3 weeks and that the aggression was, while unheard of by them personally, not completely unheard of period. And when I asked them why they had failed to warn me about this side effect when I asked them about it, they told me it was because it was so rare as to be thought unimportant.
I'll repeat that my cat is not declawed. Anything that has a side effect if irrational aggression is not unimportant.
Anyway, that's besides the point. The second time I called them after the 3rd day, I spoke with their 2nd doctor, who told me she had never heard of this behavior at all. They offered to sell me some sedatives to slip into her food; I declined because I no longer trust them.
I looked around and read some reviews and found another place up the road, and called them. They repeated the opinion of the first doctor, in that it's uncommon but anytime steroids are given, aggression can be a result. She made the analogy that as with humans who get roid rage, the same can happen in much smaller creatures such as cats. She also recommended Feliway.
So I bought that, and plugged it in before leaving for work. 13 or so hours later I'm sneaking in back home, and Laina is...well, considerably more docile. She lets me walk in her vicinity, but only just. If I come too close, she's hissing and arching again, but doesn't chase me when I back off. She gets fed (remember I had to leave her without food due to ramped up aggression that day).
The morning after, she's pleasant. She even lets me pet her for a few seconds before remembering that she hates me and hisses at me. By the end of that day, she's purring at me, leaning into my hands, acting nearly her old self....though she does hiss a few times.
This morning, she's terrific. Old girl again, even climbed into my lap a time or two, though I was understandably nervous as hell and didn't let her stay there. However...as with all goods things...between one moment and the next, and nothing I can recall at all going on between us, she flipped her switch again, and it was as bad as it was the last day before Feliway.
I knew I should have taken her to the vet yesterday when she was allowing me near her; I think I could have gotten her into the carry case then.
I'm at my wits end. I called the 2nd vet straight away, and they recommended taking half a 25mg Benadryl and grinding it into her food to calm her down, hoping that will allow me to get close to her. They also recommended trying to throw a towel over her to disorient her and get her into the carry cage that way.
Yeah, I barely escaped that intact. She chased me across half the home before backing off after that failed attempt.
Going on about 8 hours later now...she's begun calming down again. She even climbed up on the sofa within 2 or 3 feet of me and lay down to close her eyes. She didn't eat much of the Benadryl food, so I can't say for certain if that has anything to do with it or not...but I do know that if I try to touch her, she hisses again. The 2nd vet compared it to steroids creating mood swings in humans, if that's what this is.
So look, that's my situation. I don't know what's going on. Another friend of mine said their cat behaved exactly the same and it turned out the shot site had become infected. I desperately want to get Laina to this new vet so they can run some tests on her and figure out what's going on...I'm half afraid the last vet did something that hurt her, because I know lingering pain can also induce aggression in animals.
But if it's the steroids making her this way, I don't know how we can coexist in this manner until they wear off. The 3 weeks "end date' is still 5 days away....and that's assuming that is in fact the source of the problem.
So if you've read this far, I want to thank you, and beg you for any help or insight. Has anybody experienced anything like this at all, and what can I do to help her and decrease her aggression? This is stressing me out trying to tiptoe around her, and I hate that there's something wrong with her that I can't do a thing about.
I want to start off by saying Laina has been with me approximately 13 years. I'm not completely certain how old she is, but she's definitely around that age. She still has all of her claws, and she's never been particularly aggressive unless she smells a tomcat on me. She's not fond of that smell, so I've gotta be particularly cautious when dealing with strays. Running quickly by her and changing clothes and washing hands like a guilty lover is not unheard of in our relationship, lol. That being said, the rest of the time we have a loving relationship. She's not particularly a lapkitty, though she'll crawl there and lay when the mood strikes her.
Anyway, on to more recent matters. Over the last several weeks she had been slowly and steadily scratching herself, tearing out chunks of fur an leaving bloody gouges and rents in her skin. All of this was around the areas, whiskers and upper back area, and each new spot would be worse; larger and bloodier than the last. I did what I could to combat it with things like neosporin and peroxide, but ultimately I knew that I had to take her to the vet for a professional examination. I was afraid she had mites or fleas or something, but she's an indoor cat (who escapes periodically but is always swiftly brought back in).
January 21st I took her to the vet. Almost immediately they decided she had a food allergy to chicken, and told me this was not uncommon in cats as they age and have been eating chicken based foods routinely. They took a stool sample, but that was it. They took no blood, they ran no tests, and they advised that I change her food to something Rabbit, Duck or Venison based. They gave her two shots: one was a cortisone or something to help her with the pain, and the other was an antibiotic that they advised me would last for approximately 7 days; long enough to combat the existing food until I could get something better for her, and to help her heal in the meantime. I specifically asked about side-effects, and they told me 2 things: Increased eating/drinking, and increased urination.
So that was it. I took her home and noticed a nearly immediate improvement. She resumed regular grooming, stopped scratching herself bloody, and little by little the wounds began to heal.
This is where it gets "fun". Roughly 2 or 3 days after that, she was sitting in my lap, purring contentedly and half awake. She'd been this way for about 10-20 minutes. Between one stroke and the next however, she got flipped a switch and something changed. Purring disappeared, and she got that low growl that all cat owners recognize as leave me alone now...and it wasn't stopping. However she wasn't leaving my lap, and I slowly tried to move to get her off, and she ramped up immediately. I escaped with a few scratches, but she became a terror.
Hissing, shrieking, extremely loud yowling as if someone had stepped on her and was hitting her...stalking me and trying to attack me...and it stayed that way. I've heard of cat love-aggression, playful over-excitedness but please believe me when I tell you that this is not that. Fortunately, she seemed to be guarding the kitchen and felt some measure of safety there, so as long as I didn't come to close we could coexist successfully. Well, fortunately...but it *was* the kitchen she was standing sentry by, so that did pose it's own problems.
I let her be, thinking this was perhaps something that would pass, but it did not. By the second day she was considerably more aggressive, though she'd tone down temporarily when she was hungry - when I came back home she'd be meowling and just friendly enough that I could get the food for her...but once that was done, all bets were off.
By Day 3, she was arching and hissing if I so much as looked at her. I couldn't even get to the kitchen that final day to get her food.
The first time I called my vet about this, she told me this was a side-effect of the drugs they had given her, and that contrary to the 1 week they had initially told me, they would stay in her system for up to 3 weeks and that the aggression was, while unheard of by them personally, not completely unheard of period. And when I asked them why they had failed to warn me about this side effect when I asked them about it, they told me it was because it was so rare as to be thought unimportant.
I'll repeat that my cat is not declawed. Anything that has a side effect if irrational aggression is not unimportant.
Anyway, that's besides the point. The second time I called them after the 3rd day, I spoke with their 2nd doctor, who told me she had never heard of this behavior at all. They offered to sell me some sedatives to slip into her food; I declined because I no longer trust them.
I looked around and read some reviews and found another place up the road, and called them. They repeated the opinion of the first doctor, in that it's uncommon but anytime steroids are given, aggression can be a result. She made the analogy that as with humans who get roid rage, the same can happen in much smaller creatures such as cats. She also recommended Feliway.
So I bought that, and plugged it in before leaving for work. 13 or so hours later I'm sneaking in back home, and Laina is...well, considerably more docile. She lets me walk in her vicinity, but only just. If I come too close, she's hissing and arching again, but doesn't chase me when I back off. She gets fed (remember I had to leave her without food due to ramped up aggression that day).
The morning after, she's pleasant. She even lets me pet her for a few seconds before remembering that she hates me and hisses at me. By the end of that day, she's purring at me, leaning into my hands, acting nearly her old self....though she does hiss a few times.
This morning, she's terrific. Old girl again, even climbed into my lap a time or two, though I was understandably nervous as hell and didn't let her stay there. However...as with all goods things...between one moment and the next, and nothing I can recall at all going on between us, she flipped her switch again, and it was as bad as it was the last day before Feliway.
I knew I should have taken her to the vet yesterday when she was allowing me near her; I think I could have gotten her into the carry case then.
I'm at my wits end. I called the 2nd vet straight away, and they recommended taking half a 25mg Benadryl and grinding it into her food to calm her down, hoping that will allow me to get close to her. They also recommended trying to throw a towel over her to disorient her and get her into the carry cage that way.
Yeah, I barely escaped that intact. She chased me across half the home before backing off after that failed attempt.
Going on about 8 hours later now...she's begun calming down again. She even climbed up on the sofa within 2 or 3 feet of me and lay down to close her eyes. She didn't eat much of the Benadryl food, so I can't say for certain if that has anything to do with it or not...but I do know that if I try to touch her, she hisses again. The 2nd vet compared it to steroids creating mood swings in humans, if that's what this is.
So look, that's my situation. I don't know what's going on. Another friend of mine said their cat behaved exactly the same and it turned out the shot site had become infected. I desperately want to get Laina to this new vet so they can run some tests on her and figure out what's going on...I'm half afraid the last vet did something that hurt her, because I know lingering pain can also induce aggression in animals.
But if it's the steroids making her this way, I don't know how we can coexist in this manner until they wear off. The 3 weeks "end date' is still 5 days away....and that's assuming that is in fact the source of the problem.
So if you've read this far, I want to thank you, and beg you for any help or insight. Has anybody experienced anything like this at all, and what can I do to help her and decrease her aggression? This is stressing me out trying to tiptoe around her, and I hate that there's something wrong with her that I can't do a thing about.
