New Appetite Stimulant

[babiesmom5]

I want to let everyone here struggling with kitty inappetence (and that includes me),know of a recently FDA approved product called ENTYCE which provides safe and effective appetite stimulation for pets.

As some here know, I have a 16 1/2 year old cat undergoing chemo for bladder cancer.
My Oncologist told me about this new product and gave me a sample to try. It works well.

Entyce is a flavored liquid prescription product administered orally using a syringe. It mimics "ghrelen", the naturally occurring "hunger hormone" and a peptide produced in the stomach that is integral for food intake. It is labeled "for dogs", but like many other drugs, is used off label for cats.

Heretofore, we have only had Cyproheptadine, which is an anti-histamine with an appetite stimulant side effect, or Mirtazapine (which I was using), which is an anti-depressant with an appetite stimulant side effect. Entyce, by contrast, is a targeted appetite stimulant.

As those of us familiar with Mirtazapine and/or Cyproheptadine know, cats howl, yowl and are agitated shortly after giving these drugs. Not so with Entyce. I give .3 ml by syringe, which is a very small amount, and 10-15 minutes later, cat wants to eat! It is not as long lasting as Mirt or Cypro in that you have to give Entyce daily. But as my Oncologist explained, you could give Entyce in conjunction with Mirt so as to stretch the frequency.

So far so good...it is working! Those here struggling to get your cat to eat might want to ask your Vet if Entyce might be appropriate.

 

[pushylady]

That's good to know. Thanks for posting about it! I'm glad there's something new to try and hopefully it keeps working well for your cat.

 

[LTS3]

Thanks for posting this! I wonder if @artiemom might find this helpful for Artie? Something to run by N Vet the next time she gives him an Artie update.

 

[mstyles]

B babiesmom5 Did Entyce continue to work for you? My 17 year old baby Cooper was diagnosed last week with bladder cancer and is now undergoing chemo (carboplatin). His appetite had already dropped off some before starting the chemo, but now isn't so good. Mirtazapine isn't cutting it. The specialist is going to have us start Entyce. Fingers crossed it works!

 

[babiesmom5]

I am so sorry about your baby Cooper being diagnosed with bladder cancer. I truly empathize.

Sadly, in January, I lost my sweet Calico to something totally unrelated to her bladder cancer. Neither we nor her vets ever saw this. Her bladder tumor was stable. I am still too emotionally distraught to go into detail here.

In answer to your question, the Entyce did work up until I lost her. It has to be given every day though and there is a short window after Entyce "kicks in" in which you have to really push food.

I found Entyce to be of short acting duration in contrast to Mirtazapine which has an effect over several days. My Oncologist said I could give Entyce as a "booster" to Mirtazapine, so maybe you could ask your vet about that.

I do know that with chemo, the appetite runs a fairly predictable cycle following each infusion. It helps to chart their ups and downs on a calendar. This way you can be proactive with anti-nausea meds, appetite stimulants as needed. The last two weeks of the cycle, they are over the hump and at this time you can really push the food. Calico even gained weight on chemo and maintained a good quality of life for over a year after being diagnosed.

Continue to fight for Cooper; do not ever give up hope. Shower Cooper each day with love...and give him some extra love each day from me.

 

[mstyles]

B babiesmom5 I am so, so sorry to hear about your sweet Calico kitty. I know the pain that is inevitably coming at some point when my Cooper leaves us. Thinking about you and your sweet baby.

Thank you for responding. I hope it will get him to eat some more. I'm so incredibly sad because looking at him, you'd never ever know he has cancer. I'm loving him extra hard...he's probably getting sick of me! Actually, he's not because he adores me. I'm letting him do stuff that I normally wouldn't like go outside and frolic in the backyard since he's strictly indoors (yard is fenced in and I'm supervising). I'm trying to savor the moments and not think about the sadness that is coming, but as you know, that's very hard to do.

Hugs!!

 

[babiesmom5]

Thank you mstyles for your very kind words about my sweet Calico. While I miss her terribly, I believe her spirit lives on through helping others, like you and Cooper, on this site.

I do hope the Entyce works for Cooper. With lots of supportive care and love from you, just as you are doing, I think Cooper will have lots of quality time left.

Each day I told Calico what a beautiful cat she was and how much I loved her. During the past year, we became closer than ever before. You too will become closer with Cooper.

Do savor the moments. Take lots of pictures. Treat each day as a gift.

As you travel this journey, please know my thoughts and prayers are with you and Cooper.
If I can be of any help to you, offer morale support, or just lend a willing ear, I am here.

Here is a picture of my Calico after returning home from one of her infusions. She wouldn't even let me take her bandage off before she wanted to eat!

Hugs to you and Cooper.

 

[OnlyEightLives]

Hi, Gang!

I created this account to share my experience with Entyce and our 16 year old domestic short hair cat. Our kitty became stressed in the middle of a road trip in March and stopped eating. Out of a concern that she might develop feline hepatic lipdosis from fasting we sought help from an emergency vet clinic in Albuquerque. The vet prescribed Entyce. Even though Entyce has only been FDA approved for use in dogs, it worked like a charm with our cat and her appetite resumed. This was her first long road trip and she was perfectly fine on the long trip home a week later, so we thought she had become accustomed to long road trips.

About five months later we took another road trip and, sure enough, she stopped eating again by the time we reached our destination. We had predicted this might happen so we had obtained more Entyce, this time from our local vet before departing.

This time we gave her Entice; however, we had very different results. The morning after the first dose we found her on her side, under a bed, staring unblinkingly as she lay motionless. We picked her up and examined her and she was completely limp. She was alive but it appeared that she had suffered a massive stroke and was completely unaware of her surroundings. We quickly got online, found the nearest emergency vet, and whisked her there. Their initial diagnosis was that she had suffered a massive stroke. She lay in this condition for hours while they examined and tested her.

While still at the emergency vet, awaiting a cardiac consult prior to doing an MRI, she started to slowly improve over the next three or four hours. We continued to monitor her closely and, to our amazement, she was noticeably better by dinner time. By the following morning she was perfectly fine.

It's clear to us that even though she had tolerated Entyce the first time, the second time was a disaster. I've found one other report online of someone's cat experiencing the same symptoms while on Entyce, so I know I'm not the only one. I'm not opposed to prescribing things off label, as that's often a way that we learn about additional benefits from medications, but in this case I think the off label use of Entyce in cats should be done with great caution.

 

[kmoulus]

My 17 year old cat has HCM and CHF, and like many cardiac patients she has a lot of trouble keeping weight on. I had no scary side effects with Entyce but no luck with it either, Speedy won't tolerate it. Apparently it tastes awful, she drools like cats do when they taste something bad and once or twice she vomited after her dose. I figured what is the point of an appetite stimulant that makes my cat vomit? So I gave it up and instead I spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying new foods and cajoling her to eat.

 

[munch64]

Adding our experience with Entyce here in case it's helpful for others.

Our cat Farley has either IBD or intestinal lymphoma. His needle aspirate during an ultrasound was negative for large cell lymphoma. His kidneys and liver are fine according to blood work done two days ago. He's anemic and he has a heart murmur. Probably an ulcer somewhere in his upper GI tract.

He's deteriorated rapidly despite getting 15mg of prednisolone daily. He had four doses of oral chlorambucil liquid that he didn't react well to, so we stopped it. His appetite has been declining a lot since. He was nutty on half a tablet of mirtazapine, stumbling around and meowing a lot. It did help him eat. Eighth of a tablet, still meowy and restless. We started just giving him a crumb of it with his pred and he did better with that. He was on cerenia all during this time. Then mirtazapine stopped working much. We didn't want to up the dose and have him get nutty again.

Vet suggested we try Entyce. We gave the recommended dose of .5mL today. It did inspire him to eat for the first hour or so after he got it. We were so glad. Then after a couple hours, he started to act weirder. He wanted to lay under the sheets on my feet in the bed. He kept getting up and going to a nearby water bowl and laying with his head in the bowl, sometimes drinking and sometimes not. He got water all over the front of him. Then he'd go back under the sheets. He kept shifting his body position around like he couldn't get comfortable. He's been stumbling around. He jumped down from the bed right into the dresser and smacked his head. Went to use the litterbox, and then laid behind the couch. It's been about ten hours since he had Entyce and now he's more inappetent than before. He won't even touch his treats and looks at me like I'm from Mars.

I had specifically asked the vet if this would cause symptoms like mirtazapine and she said no, because it's specifically an appetite stimulant, not an antidepressant for people. But it's got to be the cause of this. It's the only thing in his regimen we changed. I wish I had given him a smaller dose to see how he'd handle it. Especially considering how the recommended dose of mirtazapine was way too high. I just hope this wears off soon and he feels a bit better.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

Adding our experience with Entyce here in case it's helpful for others.

Our cat Farley has either IBD or intestinal lymphoma. His needle aspirate during an ultrasound was negative for large cell lymphoma. His kidneys and liver are fine according to blood work done two days ago. He's anemic and he has a heart murmur. Probably an ulcer somewhere in his upper GI tract.

He's deteriorated rapidly despite getting 15mg of prednisolone daily. He had four doses of oral chlorambucil liquid that he didn't react well to, so we stopped it. His appetite has been declining a lot since. He was nutty on half a tablet of mirtazapine, stumbling around and meowing a lot. It did help him eat. Eighth of a tablet, still meowy and restless. We started just giving him a crumb of it with his pred and he did better with that. He was on cerenia all during this time. Then mirtazapine stopped working much. We didn't want to up the dose and have him get nutty again.

Vet suggested we try Entyce. We gave the recommended dose of .5mL today. It did inspire him to eat for the first hour or so after he got it. We were so glad. Then after a couple hours, he started to act weirder. He wanted to lay under the sheets on my feet in the bed. He kept getting up and going to a nearby water bowl and laying with his head in the bowl, sometimes drinking and sometimes not. He got water all over the front of him. Then he'd go back under the sheets. He kept shifting his body position around like he couldn't get comfortable. He's been stumbling around. He jumped down from the bed right into the dresser and smacked his head. Went to use the litterbox, and then laid behind the couch. It's been about ten hours since he had Entyce and now he's more inappetent than before. He won't even touch his treats and looks at me like I'm from Mars.

I had specifically asked the vet if this would cause symptoms like mirtazapine and she said no, because it's specifically an appetite stimulant, not an antidepressant for people. But it's got to be the cause of this. It's the only thing in his regimen we changed. I wish I had given him a smaller dose to see how he'd handle it. Especially considering how the recommended dose of mirtazapine was way too high. I just hope this wears off soon and he feels a bit better.

I just want to offer up that my last cat reacted terribly to the use of Cerenia, with symptoms very similar in some ways to how you say your Farley is acting on his cocktail of meds. My previous cat's reactions to Cerenia were so scary to me that I had my vet at the time specifically bar its use on my cat, making note of this in her health file, and we instead used Anzemet for an anti-nausea med (anzemet works on different pathways in the brain than cerenia). She did better on anzemet. The whole Cerenia experience I had with my last cat certainly made me leery, though, of wanting to try Cerenia at all with my current cat, should that need of an anti-nausea med ever arise for her. Cerenia has worked well with a lot of cats, but some cats -- not so much.

It's very hard to pin down which med is causing what reaction (or non-reaction, as the case might be) in a cat when the cat is actually on a handful of several types of meds. All cats react a bit differently to meds. Some cats are even allergic to certain meds. Since you said that Cerenia was a med Farley has been on as a constant through all of this, has your vet considered the thought that he is reacting badly to Cerenia or the specific dosing of Cerenia that he is on? It may not even be the mirtazapine or the entyce at all (although I've heard of many cats not reacting well to mirtazapine in the first place).

Maybe you can go over with your vet trying to find out how to test if the Cerenia could be an issue for Farley? If he's been on it a while, you definitely need to follow a vet's instructions for weaning off of it, and trying another med, if so.

 

[munch64]

Thanks so much for that tip, PushPurrCatPaws . I will definitely pay closer attention to cerenia. Last night was one of his scheduled off days from it and he did well overnight and was asking for food about every two hours. He only had pred and famotidine right before bed.

 

[white shadow]

.
Briefly, munch64 (or, for anyone needing an alternative) - there's reliable coverage of appetite stimulants here: Appetite Stimulants
.

 

[munch64]

Oops, just a quick correction: I originally wrote "He was nutty on half a tablet of mirtazapine, stumbling around and meowing a lot." But that should say quarter tablet, not half.

Thanks for the link, white shadow !

 

[35 year catdad]

Im trying ascorbic acid solution with my own health and my cats, it seems to be an anti-histamine with an appetite stimulant side effect in my skinny old 19 yr old and 5 minutes later she's wolfing down the rest of her wet foods. I think she has low tummy acidity.
Sodium ascorbate is not used as much in pet foods and my Geriatrix formula has asc. acid half way down ingredient list.
Asc acid donates 2 electrons VS 1 for sodium asc. for you chem nerds free radicals grab electrons and start a bad chain reaction C is redox

 

[35 year catdad]

I must say we have had zero side effects from the asc acid I use for increased apetite.. No vomiting, weird behavior, or loose stools (I have poop pictures) dont tempt me to post!
only side effect is more apetite every single time within 15 minutes after about 200mg in sides of her mouth only on days she has less apetite.
Its VERY controversial I am discovering and some say dont do this till it gets peer reviewed double blind placebo controlled studies.
Well we will never get that for something non toxic and endemic to our cats who make 180mg a day. Under stress it prob. goes way up like in goats who can make 100,000mg a day same exact molecule ascorbic acid. They eat anything and never get sick-if they do they usually die.
Expensive peer reviewed testing is for drugs with scary side effects like those mentioned above.
My two vets (actually 3 counting emerg one) said hey nuttn to lose! at this point These are not holistic vets but regular.
heres todays results first pic at 6:03 am, I'm full dad. next one 12 minutes after C, hungry again! then third one with runnier mix (same exact food) at 7:20 am and final one at 10:12 am just now
wolfing down some NZ grass fed ground Angus. Two servings. I'm seriously not making this up. Why would I?
I just called our vet to ask about ultrasound for possible bladder cancer? He said why? then what will we do if she has it?
BTW the poor guy is struggling with cancer himself and a bit irritable and short with me. I call a lot..
This is FELINE AGE DESCRIMINATION!! They gave up on her but not her Dad