- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #101
@GoHolistic, thank you, again.
Yes, cisapride is dependency-forming. I did not know that when it was prescribed to Tim a year ago. And while I did some initial research, enough to learn about what it had done to people, which frightened me, I never learned this. Every month when renewing the prescription, I asked if we could take Tim off cisapride. Every month, I heard "no", but with no good reason. I am mad at myself for not pushing harder, for insisting that we try something else. In January of this year, when I learned it was dependency-forming, I pushed hard and finally got the okay from the vet to give cisapride to Tim every other day instead of every day. But they did say Tim would have to be on it for life. Without even trying anything else. Even though I felt like a broken record, explaining all the changes we had made to prevent constipation.
I began to feel that all of Tim's problems were related and due to inflammation: frequent vomiting and diarrhea, coughing, weekly hairballs, sluggish and no energy; heck, I even thought the recent appearance of urinary crystals and his constipation episode could be related. The vets kept prescribing different medications for each problem, each of which caused other problems. With their okay, because they didn't know what else to do, we stopped all medications except cisapride. I wanted guidance on improving Tim's diet and seeing if we could resolve some of these issues by making him healthier overall. They couldn't give me any guidance and wished me luck. I made more changes to Tim's diet and ended up eliminating fish, chicken, carrageenan, and all gums and I fed him bone broth daily, thinking that might help.
Even though Tim improved almost immediately and I was losing track of time between vomiting and hairball episodes (that's how frequent they were), I felt very alone and unsupported, so I started researching holistic veterinarians and found one that specializes in nutrition. She's made a few adjustments, such as having me add probiotics and a tiny amount of psyllium to give him support during this process, as well as good lifestyle (holistic) advice, and we are on the right track. Tim is in better shape than ever, though he still seems to have a sensitive stomach, but we can manage this with diet.
Now we have to see if he will be able to poop on his own after being on cisapride for so long. The holistic veterinarian agrees we should at least try, and she has been so helpful during this long process. Tim has spent anywhere between two and four weeks at any given dose. Dose reductions consist of skipping an additional day between doses. The rate at which we've reduced his dose has been mostly up to him, though early on it was my comfort level. I was very uncomfortable initially when he lost the clockwork-like regularity that cisapride gave him. Now that he's more variable, but still mostly regular, I'm a lot more comfortable. I also started tracking Abby's BMs and see that she is regular with variability, and this is normal in a cat.
Tim is now taking cisapride once a week. We'll continue this through July 4th, which will be his projected last dose. Then we'll see how Tim does for the month of July. I'll continue to update this thread. Apologize for the lengthy post, but thought some background might be of interest to someone who might not want to read the entire thread.
Yes, cisapride is dependency-forming. I did not know that when it was prescribed to Tim a year ago. And while I did some initial research, enough to learn about what it had done to people, which frightened me, I never learned this. Every month when renewing the prescription, I asked if we could take Tim off cisapride. Every month, I heard "no", but with no good reason. I am mad at myself for not pushing harder, for insisting that we try something else. In January of this year, when I learned it was dependency-forming, I pushed hard and finally got the okay from the vet to give cisapride to Tim every other day instead of every day. But they did say Tim would have to be on it for life. Without even trying anything else. Even though I felt like a broken record, explaining all the changes we had made to prevent constipation.
I began to feel that all of Tim's problems were related and due to inflammation: frequent vomiting and diarrhea, coughing, weekly hairballs, sluggish and no energy; heck, I even thought the recent appearance of urinary crystals and his constipation episode could be related. The vets kept prescribing different medications for each problem, each of which caused other problems. With their okay, because they didn't know what else to do, we stopped all medications except cisapride. I wanted guidance on improving Tim's diet and seeing if we could resolve some of these issues by making him healthier overall. They couldn't give me any guidance and wished me luck. I made more changes to Tim's diet and ended up eliminating fish, chicken, carrageenan, and all gums and I fed him bone broth daily, thinking that might help.
Even though Tim improved almost immediately and I was losing track of time between vomiting and hairball episodes (that's how frequent they were), I felt very alone and unsupported, so I started researching holistic veterinarians and found one that specializes in nutrition. She's made a few adjustments, such as having me add probiotics and a tiny amount of psyllium to give him support during this process, as well as good lifestyle (holistic) advice, and we are on the right track. Tim is in better shape than ever, though he still seems to have a sensitive stomach, but we can manage this with diet.
Now we have to see if he will be able to poop on his own after being on cisapride for so long. The holistic veterinarian agrees we should at least try, and she has been so helpful during this long process. Tim has spent anywhere between two and four weeks at any given dose. Dose reductions consist of skipping an additional day between doses. The rate at which we've reduced his dose has been mostly up to him, though early on it was my comfort level. I was very uncomfortable initially when he lost the clockwork-like regularity that cisapride gave him. Now that he's more variable, but still mostly regular, I'm a lot more comfortable. I also started tracking Abby's BMs and see that she is regular with variability, and this is normal in a cat.
Tim is now taking cisapride once a week. We'll continue this through July 4th, which will be his projected last dose. Then we'll see how Tim does for the month of July. I'll continue to update this thread. Apologize for the lengthy post, but thought some background might be of interest to someone who might not want to read the entire thread.
