Medication for a pre vet visit?

[Clocat]

I have a senior feral kitty with health issues that I've posted about quite a bit in the ferals forum. She's been indoors for a couple of months and we're starting to make progress on socializing her. Except... we have a vet appointment with a specialist on Thursday.

The last time we took her to the vet it was awful. We gave her 70 mg of gabapentin the night before and 100 mg about 3.5 hours before her appointment (she weighs six pounds). The gaba did not seem to sedate her in the slightest-- if anything it seemed to weirdly ramp her up. She was *extremely* jittery the morning of her appointment and would not go in her carrier to eat her food. I ended up having to grab her, which was awful and traumatic for both of us. She was fearful around me for a couple weeks afterwards and is only now starting to come back around to me (she didn't show a similar fear of my husband, who was not involved in the capture/vet visit).

I'm so worried our appointment Thursday will set us back. I had asked the vet after her last appointment if there's any other medication we could try and she simply recommended upping her gabapentin to 150 mg which seems incredibly high. I was reading that you could possibly give a benzo and I was going to ask them if there's any chance they could dispense a single dose, but I'm wondering if she didn't offer that due to it being a controlled substance. It would need to be something we could crush and leave in food or put in a pill pocket--there's no way we could squirt buprenex in her mouth.

Does anyone have similar experiences with Gabapentin not seeming to work? Does 150 mg sound incredibly high for such a tiny cat? It makes me so nervous to give that much to her. But at the same time I really don't know how we're going to get her into a carrier given how savvy she is unless she's somehow sedated.

I hate that we have to even do this but it's a follow-up appointment with the specialist who diagnosed her with the rare autoimmune disorder that she has, and I really want her to go back to this same specialist. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[sivyaleah]

I used to use gabapentin to be able to groom my younger one when she was a kitten (she is much better now that she's older). It worked great, except for one time, when it did nothing at all.

My vet said there are always variables based on body chemistry on a particular day or even how much you fuss with the cat instead of allowing it to just be left alone until the medication kicks in.

For the most part it's a safe, effective medication but sometimes the cat can "push" itself to override the sedating effect of it. 150 mg is on the high side but I've heard of some cats that need up to 200 mg. I was using 100 mg. but did find a small topping off so it was more like 110 mg seemed to do the trick better.

I'd certainly talk to the doctor again and discuss your concerns. There may be a better combination of medication where you aren't having to give so much of the gabapentin.

 

[Tobermory]

I’ve tried gabapentin with Mocha, my former feral, once, and it didn’t seem to affect her very much. I had to be sneaky to get her into the carrier, and the vet staff had trouble with her. Very frustrating.

In terms of dosage, my super senior, Iris, gets 150 mg. daily for arthritis: 50 mg. in her morning meal and 100 mg. in her evening meal. She weighs nine pounds.

 

[LokiLamia]

I have a senior feral kitty with health issues that I've posted about quite a bit in the ferals forum. She's been indoors for a couple of months and we're starting to make progress on socializing her. Except... we have a vet appointment with a specialist on Thursday.

The last time we took her to the vet it was awful. We gave her 70 mg of gabapentin the night before and 100 mg about 3.5 hours before her appointment (she weighs six pounds). The gaba did not seem to sedate her in the slightest-- if anything it seemed to weirdly ramp her up. She was *extremely* jittery the morning of her appointment and would not go in her carrier to eat her food. I ended up having to grab her, which was awful and traumatic for both of us. She was fearful around me for a couple weeks afterwards and is only now starting to come back around to me (she didn't show a similar fear of my husband, who was not involved in the capture/vet visit).

I'm so worried our appointment Thursday will set us back. I had asked the vet after her last appointment if there's any other medication we could try and she simply recommended upping her gabapentin to 150 mg which seems incredibly high. I was reading that you could possibly give a benzo and I was going to ask them if there's any chance they could dispense a single dose, but I'm wondering if she didn't offer that due to it being a controlled substance. It would need to be something we could crush and leave in food or put in a pill pocket--there's no way we could squirt buprenex in her mouth.

Does anyone have similar experiences with Gabapentin not seeming to work? Does 150 mg sound incredibly high for such a tiny cat? It makes me so nervous to give that much to her. But at the same time I really don't know how we're going to get her into a carrier given how savvy she is unless she's somehow sedated.

I hate that we have to even do this but it's a follow-up appointment with the specialist who diagnosed her with the rare autoimmune disorder that she has, and I really want her to go back to this same specialist. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I take Gabapentin as a woman it sound crazy to give a cat the same dosage as a 180 lb woman

 

[nurseangel]

LokiLamia , this sounds strange, but some medications used for people have the same dosage for a small animal. I questioned this on generic Elavil as well. Why were they giving my cat something that was the same as a human dose? I had no idea.

As to the original post, if the gabapentin isn't working, maybe you should check with your vet about another medication, though it is a tough call as to how your kitty will react. Speck drooled and foamed with the Elavil. It may be good in some cases, but he was suspicious of me (my heart cat!) and still angry, just drugged. We were having issue with him and Daisy. He would attack and not stop, even when she submitted.

With everyone scared to give a controlled substance these days, I wonder if your vet would prescribe a single benzo. A long time ago, I knew of a dog that was on Valium every day. Most of the entire medical community would fall out about that now, even though the dog must have needed it. IMHO, the harm of prescribing one dose of a benzo is very slim, legally. Given your cat's history, I don't see how much of a legal issue it could cause for them. However, I couldn't get them to give one Ativan to my mom when she was in the nursing home (though a benzo, it is the only antiemetic I know of that can be dissolved under the tongue if someone is vomiting.) Sorry, I am off my soapbox now. I did not intend a mini-rant.

 

[Clocat]

Thanks, all, sorry for not replying sooner--for some reason I didn't get emails that you all had replied. We went ahead with the gabapentin even though we managed to get a prescription for trazodone. I just wasn't sure if she would eat the trazodone in her pill pocket and we were supposed to give it to her an hour and a half before her appointment--at that point if she wouldn't eat it she would be completely unsedated, as it would be too late to use the gaba. We plan to do a test run of the trazodone later to see if that provides any greater relief than gabapentin. Fortunately, this time around the gabapentin did knock her out so that she was fast asleep and we were able to just throw a towel over her and wrestle her into the carrier. Hopefully no more vet visits in the near future, but good to know that other kitties have been on higher doses than this without any problems.

 

[Binxie]

Decades ago I had a cat that had to be sedated when going to the vet and I used Acepromazine, I don't know if it is used much anymore but it worked.

 

[Clocat]

Decades ago I had a cat that had to be sedated when going to the vet and I used Acepromazine, I don't know if it is used much anymore but it worked.

That is good to know--I will ask about it if the trazodone doesn't work.