appetite stimulant not working for Etta

[laura mae]

I was really hoping to get all her new medications started by now. Still don't have them. My regular vet doesn't carry the pentoxifillene and the prednisone is in a "chicken liver" tablet which there is no way she'll eat it. They also do the suspension in Pet Tinic I know because I had that for dear little Charlie and her asthma and one last ditch effort.

After talking to my vet yesterday late there was a message on my home phone-not my cell that I've left with them-- from one of the assistants that said that they don't carry pentoxifillene and it might be cheaper for me to get it elsewhere. At first I thought it was pre-discussion from my vet but now I wonder if it wasn't. I deleted the message have to call the vet AGAIN tomorrow.

We spoke about the cytology report which didn't rule out the cancer and that some of the activity could not rule out FIP. That was something my regular vet focused on but not something that the specialist was concerned about. I didn't realize that any corona virus can mutate into FIP. She had no clinical signs of any thing like that. In December my cat Scooter had the sniffles and his test showed a bacterial infection not virus.  None of them go outside.  But she said that any cat inside or outside can end up with it. The protein is not anywhere close to being FIP though.

I asked the compounding pharmacy if they had an order in for the pred and atenolol for liquid and the pentoxifillene. She said it hadn't been called in.

When the vet and I spoke she said the pentoxifillene was something to build up red blood cells. In humans people who have sickle cell anemia get it. She said that the off-label use for cats might be to stop the leaky vessels. It does have some potential side effects that could not be good. But it may be the only thing that keeps the fluid from re-establishing.

She is doing a lot better today ate much more but still not quite enough last night and this AM and evening. She got her dose of appetite stimulant. I've added the high calorie supplement gel (which is not delicious to her) Tomlyn High Calorie nutritional supplement. I also tried Honest Kitchen pro-biotic goats milk powder thinking that re-constituted that might be a yummy supplement. That's a big no on the milk. No cat will touch it.

More tomorrow hopefully with medication that will keep the fluid from re-building!

 

[foxxycat]

I hope your vet gets on the ball and gets these meds called in. I would definitely ask for Cerenia and permission to give her Pepcid. you can get it over the counter. its 1/4 tablet from a 10 mg but is very bitter. I recommend ordering empty #3 gelcaps online or your local health food store or vitamin store-some people stick all the meds in the empty capsule-coat with butter-use the pill popper or one called a pill buster on amazon that has a section where you add water and it administers the water afterwards which helps ensure the pill goes down the hatchet.

I had one cat who is NOT pillable. The vet gave me scripts to order on thriving pets the vials of Pepcid and Cerenia. the Cerenia is EXPENSIVE but a life saver. It truly made my girls last 2 weeks of life so much more comfortable. same with the Pepcid which is famotidine and that vial of meds is like $12 to $20. the Cerenia is $170 but you wont have to pill again. My vet sent me home with needles for the meds as well. IF this is something you want to pursue in the future.

another thing you can be sent home with is sub fluids. that will also help your kitty stay hydrated on days she is not eating well. I know all this is overwhelming. But fluids/Cerenia/Pepcid plus the meds your vet wants to use=will really help keep her comfortable for however long she has. I have seen some kitties do very well on just prednisolone and Cerenia/Pepcid for weeks into months. Some cats don't need the pred and eat ok with Cerenia/Pepcid combo but the pred is what may be needed if its cancer. its hard to say how she will react to all these meds but at the minimum you can always ask about these treatments.

I apologize if I repeated myself concerning the meds/dosage etc=I answer several posts a day and sometimes I can't remember who I gave what info to but I also have to tell you please discuss any medications with the vet=some vets don't take to well to us suggesting things-I have had to word things differently and say something like=I had a cat who I used to do x y and z to get them on board. If I say I saw something online-they instantly shut down. But when I say my dear friends' cat was a cancer survivor and that's where I learned all this=is a good ice breaker. This is the truth for me. My dear friend in the next state her cat had large cell lymphoma. he was only 1.5 years old. he is now 3 years and several months into remission. So after this incident with her cat-I am always open to trying treatments. But sometimes its a 50/50. We can't predict the future. And sometimes we have nothing left to loose but try.

 

[laura mae]

 
I hope your vet gets on the ball and gets these meds called in. I would definitely ask for Cerenia and permission to give her Pepcid. you can get it over the counter. its 1/4 tablet from a 10 mg but is very bitter. I recommend ordering empty #3 gelcaps online or your local health food store or vitamin store-some people stick all the meds in the empty capsule-coat with butter-use the pill popper or one called a pill buster on amazon that has a section where you add water and it administers the water afterwards which helps ensure the pill goes down the hatchet.

I had one cat who is NOT pillable. The vet gave me scripts to order on thriving pets the vials of Pepcid and Cerenia. the Cerenia is EXPENSIVE but a life saver. It truly made my girls last 2 weeks of life so much more comfortable. same with the Pepcid which is famotidine and that vial of meds is like $12 to $20. the Cerenia is $170 but you wont have to pill again. My vet sent me home with needles for the meds as well. IF this is something you want to pursue in the future.

another thing you can be sent home with is sub fluids. that will also help your kitty stay hydrated on days she is not eating well. I know all this is overwhelming. But fluids/Cerenia/Pepcid plus the meds your vet wants to use=will really help keep her comfortable for however long she has. I have seen some kitties do very well on just prednisolone and Cerenia/Pepcid for weeks into months. Some cats don't need the pred and eat ok with Cerenia/Pepcid combo but the pred is what may be needed if its cancer. its hard to say how she will react to all these meds but at the minimum you can always ask about these treatments.

I apologize if I repeated myself concerning the meds/dosage etc=I answer several posts a day and sometimes I can't remember who I gave what info to but I also have to tell you please discuss any medications with the vet=some vets don't take to well to us suggesting things-I have had to word things differently and say something like=I had a cat who I used to do x y and z to get them on board. If I say I saw something online-they instantly shut down. But when I say my dear friends' cat was a cancer survivor and that's where I learned all this=is a good ice breaker. This is the truth for me. My dear friend in the next state her cat had large cell lymphoma. he was only 1.5 years old. he is now 3 years and several months into remission. So after this incident with her cat-I am always open to trying treatments. But sometimes its a 50/50. We can't predict the future. And sometimes we have nothing left to loose but try.

Foxxycat; I appreciate all the info. I wondered where to get the gel caps.  I'm going to need them because I'm just calling the specialist vet to get the meds from them. Then if something comes through on the liquid suspension I'll go with that.

 

[foxxycat]

you can see if your local GNC has them or health food store with vitamins. I am sure someone has them. if nothing else maybe ask the pharmacy if they sell them? I don't know if they do. but I bought my empty gel caps on www.powdercity.com but you can get them on Amazon or any other online site. Amazon may ship it faster. Powder city has tons of different vitamins/herbs for people if you take anything for yourself like this.

 

[laura mae]

I ended up ordering small empty gel caps and a couple of different style of pill shooters from Amazon. Should be here by Saturday. The Pentoxil/Trental pills are HUGE and I have to cut them into 4ths. The specialist vet said "just coat it in butter." I have the one cat in the entire world who hates butter. If she just smells it she gags. Always has.  In better news, she ate more tonight and enjoyed some bits of steamed chicken breast. I made a bunch of chicken and didn't season it at all, saved the bone broth and some of the chicken for her tomorrow as a reward for taking her medication.

I've never seen Etta with her ears back. But they were tonight. she didn't do anything but just looked angry for a minute. It was all good later. I'm annoyed that it took so long to get this medication. I should have just gone with the specialist in the first place. She has a bit of fluid building back up. The Pentoxil/Trental is supposed to help fix that.

I still need to get the prednisolone. I just couldn't make all the dang calls in one day. I'm exhausted and my kitchen looks like a cat pharmacy with various syringes bottles etc.  I have to also give Cisipride every 12 hours to Booberry and a squirt of water with Metimucil.

So pentoxil and Trental is a blood flow enhancer. It thin blood and improves red blood cell flexibility based on some info I've found on the drug. How that decreases "leaky" vessels I'm not sure. It could be that sluggish blood flow is what encourages leaky vessels.

 

[foxxycat]

I am surprised that the specialist didn't explain better to you how those meds work. I have to research it as I am not familiar with those.

 

[laura mae]

He only said that it was critical that we use both of them and that the pentoxil would help with the vasculitis. He was clearly disappointed that I wasn't going with the exploratory so may have written it off. Anyway, I got the 2nd dose in her today. Rather than butter (Which she hates) I used coconut oil until the gel caps arrive tomorrow. The vet specialist people don't do stuff like call in to have drugs compounded and so I was trying to do that with my regular vet. The regular vet office---since they couldn't find a source for pentoxil just didn't bother to have the pred called in. I'm just trying to spare Etta one more tablet. So....they are calling it in today meanwhile they have chicken liver flavored tablets of pred which I will crush up and put in some processed chicken and chicken liver I have.

She's eating better---fluid is coming back because it took so long to get all the medications. Feel like it is almost a lost cause but will keep trying.

 

[foxxycat]

if you can get the script you can check online on a few sites to get them compounded.

Diamond Back Pharmacy-online compound

Wedgewood Pharmacy-online compound

Wingate Pharmacy Nashua NH-Compounding only

Roadrunner pharmacy I believe.

Some of these have treats in dif flavors-they can mail the vet the blanks and you pick up to see what flavor works-they get a call from vet/you to what flavor and they add the meds in the treats.

You may have to call an 1-800# to ask if they carry any of the meds you have.

The only thing I can suggest is if its pred to not go with transdermal gel. Some meds work ok this way but studies have shown that for pred it doesn't work as good as oral liquid/tablet kind.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

This attached guide tells you which drugs from Roadrunner Pharmcy can be compounded into which type of application (gel, injectable, etc.)  It comes in handy.  https://www.roadrunnerpharmacy.com/media/1225/roadrunnerproductandservicesguide.pdf  Just scroll down and the medication list should start up in alpha order. 

 

[laura mae]

Thanks for the info on what works. The compounding pharmacy actually remembered me telling them to expect a call and so when they called in the predisolone, they said "we can do the pentoxifillyne too." She got both tonight and then I still crushed up the atenolol and thyroid med and mixed it with 1 ml of water as a last chaser. 

She still didn't enjoy and spins her head to try to keep me from squiring stuff in but it seems so much less stressful than the pills.  I think I have to wait a bit between the syringes.  I wait until after her meal to do this so she has food in her tummy. She kept eating her food tonight. She's not snarfing it, but did really well. Later she got a nice brushing with this rubber toothed brush which she enjoys. 

The pred and the pentox are for one month. 

If it goes longer, at least I know that my hubby can do the liquids. I travel in October to visit my parents. There's no way he could do the pills. Here's to hoping it all works. 

 

[Acerquone]

I know this thread hasn't been active in a few years, but it's still a top search result on Google, so I thought I would share my story.

My cat hasn't eaten in 2 days because of an infection, and before that it was very little. We tried a subdermal appetite stimulant, Mirataz, earlier today to no avail. I had begun to lose hope. I groggily walked through the cat food aisle at the grocery store tonight, trying to find something that might entice my cat to eat. I got a bag of treats she had liked before, some cans of wet food, something called cat milk, and then I saw catnip. My cat had always responded to catnip when she was well and I thought it might work to at least make her more like herself for a bit. I googled and saw this thread, and a couple other things. Nothing was conclusive, so I thought I'd try it.

When I got home, I took a bit out and she was disinterested. I took a pinch and rubbed some on her cheeks. I made a small plate of wet food for her. She ignored it. She continued to pace, something she's been doing for days with this infection and possibly because she is starting to suffer from dementia. Finally, I stopped her during her pacing and pet her and put her head closer to the dish of wet food. She started licking it up! She licked the plate almost clean. She even went to the dry food and nibbled when I was mixing her up some more of the opened can.

We will see how it goes. I am hopeful again, at least. Maybe it is the appetite stimulant working after several hours or maybe it was the catnip? I think it was the catnip.