Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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I picked up Charlie's prescription for Gabapentin from the compounding pharmacy. Can someone help me if this is a typical dose for a cat to have? Charlie is 6.94 kilograms. The Gabapentin is 100 mg/ml suspension. He is to have .6 ml by mouth every 8 hours. Isn't that 60 mg every 8 hours? From what I have been able to find, that seems like a rather large dose?
I haven't used it before in my cats, but the info I'm finding online also says that's pretty high. This link says a max dose of 10 mg/k twice daily. If it were me, I'd call and double check with the vet. Was he still having pain symptoms on the Buprenex every 8-12 hours? 
~Melinda and Tri-Kitty Angel Kender
Follow Kender's story here
I don't think Charlie is constantly in pain. Constant discomfort on some level I think he does have, which I hope isn't abnormal. He pretty much sleeps and looks fairly miserable. He does have some times where he is a bit chipper. He doesn't want to walk much at all. He seems sorer today than he has been up until now. Again, I hope a not abnormal course of recovery. The Gabapentin was prescribed for Charlie because for the past 40 hours he has woken up in a panic, sounds like he is in a cat fight, poofed tail, and just looks petrified. The first 3 times were intense, but they have become less so, in part I think because I am not leaving his side so I can immediately comfort him. He is still on the Buprenex. The vet said to continue it and add the Gabapentin. I called the surgeon a bit ago. I told them the info on the compounded Gabapentin and the person who answered the phone said that is how the vet prescribed it, even though I told her I wanted to doublecheck the dose. I was not going to get anywhere, so plan to call my regular vet tomorrow. In the meantime, I am only going to give Charlie .2 ml later tonight (I gave him .3 ml around 2:00 today).
Poor Charlie!! I hope the Gabapentin helps!! I did some more reading, and it looks like they give it in much higher doses when used as an anti-seizure med. Maybe knowing how bad he was reacting, the vet put him on the higher dosage to ensure relief?? I hope you get answers and that, in the meantime, it takes care of those episodes <3
~Melinda and Tri-Kitty Angel Kender
Follow Kender's story here
I use gaba for my quad pug Tani, she has very bad arthritis. She weighs 15 pounds (about 6.8 kg) and she gets 25 mg every 12 hours.
A word of caution on the gaba- since it is also a seizure medication you have to be careful how you stop giving it. With seizure meds you always want to taper off of them not stop cold. I'm not sure if you have to taper if you only use for a short time but that is something else to discuss with your vet.
Karen and Spirit Maggie
Tri-pug Maggie survived a 4.5 year mast cell cancer battle only to be lost to oral melanoma.
1999 to 2010
Smore had buprenex, metacam, and amoxicillan in her post-op. I never noticed anything unusual aside from the fact that she slept more and purred more. Sometimes she would meow, but I don't know if that's because she wanted me to hold her or she wanted pain meds.
Dont worry so much about normal versus abmormal. Reading through the tri-kitty blogs made me realize that there is no normal..just what's normal for Charlie. Every cat is different in how they respond to pain and pain medication. Cats do sleep a lot and remember Charlie just went through MAJOR surgery that would keep us in the hospital for weeks. He might not be the same cat during recovery, but eventually he will amaze you at how he adapts. Just keep being his advocate and his voice like you're doing. Once you find the right medicines for him and the right balance of dosage, it will be much easier.
Hugs from Tina, Smore, and Pebbles
Tina and Smore
(with the spirit of Pebbles watching from the Rainbow Bridge)
Smore is my tripawd kitty who adopted me one summer evening. She had an injury to her front left leg and had to have her leg removed July 17th. She was only 3 or 4 months old at the time. Now she moves faster than some four legged cats!
You have all been so terrific, and I wanted to update you on Charlie. He will be two weeks post op on Saturday and there has been such improvement 
. He is off all medication and had his stitches removed yesterday. His scared episodes became waking up meowing a bit scared, to no episodes now for 2 days. We have been picking him up and putting him on the couch, one of his most favorites spots, as he didn't seem interested in the stairs we had for him to use. I mistakenly thought he wasn't ready for them. Well, today he got up from the couch and walked down them with absolutely no difficulty. Charlie has never been a jumper, so there are few spots we need to worry about him getting to. Our next worry is the flight of stairs. The stairs from the couch have only two steps with a large landing area on each step. So far we have kept him from the flight of stairs, but hopefully he will be ready to try those soon too 
Bravvvvvooooo! WooT! I'm so happy to hear that CHarlie is getting around so much better and not having those episodes any more. Updates like this mean so very much to people just starting their own journey, thanks for letting us know how he's doing.
Here's to conquering those stairs soon! You're great pawrents for monitoring that carefully.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
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