Allergy medication advice

[FriendofFerals]

Hello everyone,

I'm blessed with TWO cats with allergies. Cat #1 (Squeaky) has severe environmental and food allergies, and asthma. Cat #2 (Romeo) has allergic sinusitis and frequent IRUs...along with other issues. Squeaky is on Depo-Medrol every 6 weeks. He is 16 years old with no CKD or anything. Romeo is 13, Stage 2 CKD and type II diabetes in remission. Is there a better but equally effective medication than Depo for severe case cats that need allergy meds regularly? I really do not want Squeaky to develop diabetes and CKD, and Romeo cannot risk taking it at all, given that I'm already managing both conditions.

 

[sivyaleah]

If you are not already working with a feline allergist I'd highly suggest doing so. I think they would be most educated on all the medical nuances you are dealing with.

My youngest has environmental allergies. She gets immunotherapy via sublingual drops 2x daily and the improvement has been very good.

 

[FriendofFerals]

Thanks for the reply! I have actually never heard of feline allergists but I will find one! There's got to be a better alternative than Depo and I like the idea of ongoing treatment daily, not just once every 6 weeks with the end of the time being full of itching, asthma and allergies all over again.

 

[sivyaleah]

Thanks for the reply! I have actually never heard of feline allergists but I will find one! There's got to be a better alternative than Depo and I like the idea of ongoing treatment daily, not just once every 6 weeks with the end of the time being full of itching, asthma and allergies all over again.

What I discovered is most regular vets, good as they are, don't have enough training in allergies to treat it effectively. There are several medications which can be used off label which work well for feline allergies.

I was lucky that my vet is good friends with the allergist so once Luna was diagnosed and put on a plan, she allowed the regular vet to do the follow-up visits since she was quite a drive from our home. I just need to contact the allergist for medication refills, which is about every 3 months. Luna went from having constant yeast infections in her ears, bad dandruff and a lot of scratching to not having an ear infections in gosh, well over a year now, dandruff is resolved and she only scratches the amount all cats would do normally.