I've already discussed this with my vet, so this is me just being really paranoid at this point, so I was wondering if anyone had any experience with giving a cat lorazipam for sedation during travel. We are moving in a few days and will take about 10 days to get to our new house. We're traveling with 11 cats, and one of them freaks out like you wouldn't believe in the car. The other 10 do pretty well. The one who freaks out, also has a heart murmur, though as of 6 months ago, no other signs of heart disease (she's been to a cardiologist).
I know that if sedatives can be avoided then they should be, but for Samantha, it seems that when she is calmer, her heart murmur also is. When it was initially heard by my regular vet, it was graded as a 3-4, and she was freaking out at the time. The drive to the cardiologist was an hour long drive, so we sprayed Feliway all over her carrier in an attempt to calm her down and she did seem to be calmer that time. The cardiologist graded the murmur as a 1-2 and told us that it may have sounded worse initially because her little heart was pumping so quickly, due to her not being calm.
So as we move we're going to spray the carrier with Feliway each day again, but after talking to the vet, we decided that adding a sedative that wouldn't interact with her heart would also be a good idea. So the vet prescribed lorazipam and said that it shouldn't have any interactions with her heart murmur. I do trust my vet, but I'm also a paranoid person so I was just hoping to hear someone else's experience with lorazipam - good or bad.
I lost a cat to undiagnosed heart disease a little over a year ago and I have been paranoid ever since. I can't get the thought of Samantha's heart murmur out of my mind, even though as of right now, her heart seems to be fine otherwise, so I'm just a little nervous about giving her any type of medicine to calm her down. But at the same time I am terrified that by NOT giving her any type of sedative, then her heart will be beating way too fast, which may end up causing more problems in the end. So has anyone used lorazipam for their cat before? (whether your cat has a heart murmur or not, I'm still interested to hear your experience)
I know that if sedatives can be avoided then they should be, but for Samantha, it seems that when she is calmer, her heart murmur also is. When it was initially heard by my regular vet, it was graded as a 3-4, and she was freaking out at the time. The drive to the cardiologist was an hour long drive, so we sprayed Feliway all over her carrier in an attempt to calm her down and she did seem to be calmer that time. The cardiologist graded the murmur as a 1-2 and told us that it may have sounded worse initially because her little heart was pumping so quickly, due to her not being calm.
So as we move we're going to spray the carrier with Feliway each day again, but after talking to the vet, we decided that adding a sedative that wouldn't interact with her heart would also be a good idea. So the vet prescribed lorazipam and said that it shouldn't have any interactions with her heart murmur. I do trust my vet, but I'm also a paranoid person so I was just hoping to hear someone else's experience with lorazipam - good or bad.
I lost a cat to undiagnosed heart disease a little over a year ago and I have been paranoid ever since. I can't get the thought of Samantha's heart murmur out of my mind, even though as of right now, her heart seems to be fine otherwise, so I'm just a little nervous about giving her any type of medicine to calm her down. But at the same time I am terrified that by NOT giving her any type of sedative, then her heart will be beating way too fast, which may end up causing more problems in the end. So has anyone used lorazipam for their cat before? (whether your cat has a heart murmur or not, I'm still interested to hear your experience)