Cat Diagnosed with Hyperesthesia/Dosage Question

[PrincessMom123]

Hi everyone — my cat, Princess is 5 years old and was just diagnosed with hyperesthesia. She doesn’t have a bad case of it — she doesn’t have the hyperesthesia “attacks”, but has has frequent back skin rippling and periodically pulls out fur in pattern that indicates back pain. The the vet confirmed hypersensitivity with an exam.

She’s around 13 pounds and he’s starting her off at 50 mg of Gabapentin every 12 hours. I trust his diagnosis, but this seems like a high dosage to begin with for potential long-term use. I’m wondering if anyone else using gaba to treat this has had success at maybe 25 mg twice per day or less? Or if 50 twice a day is normal? I’ve tried Googling dosages and every site seems to suggest something different.

 

[silent meowlook]

Hi.
Gabapentin @ 50mg is a low dose. Standard where I have worked is 100mg. I have seen doses of 300mg given, but I wouldn’t ever give that much. So, if your vet prescribed 50mg, you should be fine. I am glad you trust your vet.

I am not a vet. I do have some questions. How was the hyperesthesia diagnosed? As far as I know, it is a disease of exclusion. Meaning it is only diagnosed once everything else has been ruled out with diagnostics such as skin scrapings to check for mites and checking for fleas, a fungal culture to check for fungal infection, then allergy testing for environmental allergies like dust mite, or certain danders and pollen, and biopsy of the skin, a 3 month food allergy novel protein source diet trial.Then if none of that yields any diagnostic results, then feline hyperesthesia can be considered.

I have seen many cats with horrible environmental allergies or flea allergy with owners who think it’s hyperesthesia due to the skin rippling, when it is actually something quite treatable.
Feline Symmetrical Alopecia


I had a cat that would do the skin rippling. He also had thinning of his hair. After not having success with my current at that time veterinarian, I went to a veterinary dermatologist and after testing it was discovered he was allergic to everything from dust mites to dog dander. He had to get allergy injections and did very well with that. Sad that he spent years that itchy before I figured out what was wrong.

 

[PrincessMom123]

Thank you for your comment! She’s on flea medication monthly and is on cetirizine daily for environmental allergies already, which is why I believe he ruled out those two causes (he talked about the potential for both with me). The vet also said that the spots where the fur pulling took place weren’t red, scaly, or irritated, which to him, alongside the pattern in which the fur pulling presented, indicated the cat was trying to access where she was feeling pain, rather than an allergy. He did recognize that it could be a food allergy and that we could start experimenting with diet to test for that, but given the evidence, he wanted to try gaba first and see if that stopped the fur pulling.

 

[silent meowlook]

The 50 mg of Gabapentin is a low dose. I doubt 25 mg would do anything.