Dexamethasone?

Rocky is on dexamethasone for his allergies, and has been on the medication for about 2 months now. I never bothered to google the medication he was taking, but today I decided to look into it. It says that cats are commonly given 0.5 mg.. Rocky is on 1.5 mg, he gets one tablet crushed into his food every 24 hours. Is this a high dosage? I worry that being on this medication long term may be bad for him.. I will be contacting our vet tomorrow with my questions, but I wanted to know if anyone has had their cats on this medication or knows anything about it? Thanks for the feedback

how much does your cat weigh?

He weighs about 11 pounds.

My kitty was on dex for a little over a year for IBD.  There was a nationwide shortage of prednisolone which is why he was on dex.  He was on 1/4  milligram a day.  Of course my kitty was on it for a completely different reason.

The main side effect with long term use is diabetes which usually resolves when they are taken off of the steroid.  Something that did happen with my  kitty at the end of the year was high blood sugar.  Not high enough to say he was diabetic but it was high,  The supply issues with pred had been resolved by then so the vet put him back on the prednisolone and his blood sugar came back down.

Another lesser occurring side effect is Cushing's disease.  I don't know much about it but I do know the issues with blood sugar and diabetes is much more common,

My cat was given a dexamethasone (Hexadreson, 0.3 mL, 4.8 kg cat) injection today for intestinal inflammation. Anyone know if the side effects are similar to Depo-Medro? I was reading the side effects from steroid shots thread (http://www.thecatsite.com/t/193482/side-effects-from-steroid-shot) and the only mention of dexamethasone was someone whose cat died five days after injection. Does it last as long as Depo Medrol?

The only side effect my vet mentioned was increased appetite, which would be good since she's only been eating about 160 kcal/day.

here's a pretty good resource:

http://www.drugs.com/vet/cats-a.html

After talking with my vet, we decided to start weaning Rocky off dexamethasone in favor of a different medication for his allergies.

samus said:

 
My cat was given a dexamethasone (Hexadreson, 0.3 mL, 4.8 kg cat) injection today for intestinal inflammation. Anyone know if the side effects are similar to Depo-Medro? I was reading the side effects from steroid shots thread (http://www.thecatsite.com/t/193482/side-effects-from-steroid-shot) and the only mention of dexamethasone was someone whose cat died five days after injection. Does it last as long as Depo Medrol?

The only side effect my vet mentioned was increased appetite, which would be good since she's only been eating about 160 kcal/day.

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Rocky was taking it in tablet form, so I am not sure if it is the same. I can confirm that he did experience increased appetite and increased thirst when put on it.

I had a cat that was on Dexamethasone several years ago for her asthma. It was just one of many medications that she was on. It has been so long that I can't remember if it was one of the pills I gave her or one of the liquid meds that I put in her nebulizer.