Gabapentin Question

Hi FDMB members: I haven't been here for a couple of years since my diabetic Oreo had passed.
But I couldn't think of a better source for getting advise for my other cat, Debbie. She has a degenerative back
and arthritis. (and what a coincidence, so do I!) Her vet gave her Gabapentin.
We started with the lowest dose advised, which was .75 ml. twice a day. She was completely "stoned". So we dropped the dose by half, and same story.
So we thought we can build up to an effectve dose. Today we started with .1 ml in the AM. She is still sleepy and sedated, though not as bad. Have you ever used Gabapentin with your arthritic kitties, and what do you know about it? I wondered if you can build up the dosage? If you have any advise, please let me know.
Getting old isn't for sissy s , even in cats!

 

Following. My vet is considering using this with cc. Right now we are only doing adequan injections.

 

I ended up using buprenorphine long term, instead of gabapentin for Neko's arthritis. We did trial gabapentin for a while, but it made her very sleepy. I have heard that the first couple of weeks they are sleepy and then get over it, so maybe hang in for a while. We tried it for a few weeks, but Neko never did get over the sleepiness and it didn't seem to help the arthritis pain much anyway. ECID, I have heard of some cats for home gaba works well. We also started with a lower dose, then upped it after a while.

Another thing I found really helped Neko was acupuncture treatments, plus daily acupressure I did at home.

 

Thanks Wendy! The Bupronex seems to work better for Debbie. Our vet seems to think Gabapentin is worth trying. So we will start with an extremely low dose in the AM and try to acclimate her to it. I did not understand something you wrote: ECID, I have heard of some cats for home gaba works well. Sorry I don't know what this means.
I am going to find out about acupuncture as well. And I am dealing with the same stuff with my own back, and was unable to use Gabapentin due to the sedation.

 

ECID = each cat is different. What works for one might not for another. Cold lasers are another option.

 

How many mg in 1 ml of the gabapentin liquid? Without that I can't say much except that my 8 pound civi gets 50 mg capsule of gabapentin twice daily and I see no real sedation effects. She is also on Adaquan and cosequin.

 

We have been using a compounded liquid, chicken flavored, for our Tanner who has pretty bad joint pain in his right elbow. We have been giving him .3ml, but we need to increase it because we need to make him sleepy to endure a plane trip. Do you at what dose your cats became very lethargic? I've been incrementally increasing his dosage daily - we're up to .45 now, but it's till no making him dozy enough. But I don't want to overdose him. Any ideas or suggestions? Thank you!!

 

It would be good to know how many mg per 1 ml (strength) the Gabapentin is. At the vet I work for, we have been starting kitties out at very low doses (Gabapentin has a huge range in safe dosing). My kitty has very bad spinal arthritis as well. He is on 2.5mg Prednisolone once to twice daily (alternating days), Gabapentin, and Buprenex. We started him on 40mg/ml Gaba, and he got 0.5ml twice daily as his initial dose - so only 20mg per dose, and after a few weeks he was fairly normal after receiving that dose. We then moved him to 0.75ml (30mg) twice daily, and he's now on 1.0ml (40mg) twice daily, but occasionally gets it three times daily. Even though we give the Gaba and Bupe together - Ben is only really sleepy for a bit after receiving his dose.

He seems to take about 2-3 weeks to adjust to a dose increase - prior to that, he is quite "stoned" after getting his dose. In his case, he is very painful, and we'd rather him be a little sleepier than usual than painful, but of course, don't want to just "knock him out" all the time. Increasing the dose slowly seems to really work well for him - cats can go way up to something like 150mg three times daily on Gabapentin (safely!), so his dose is still VERY low considering.

 

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Thank you for responding... I don't have the bottle in front of me but I know the number 300 is in the formulation for sure. So I'm thinking it would be 300mg per 1 ml. Does that sound about right? I'll double check upon it later and post if it's any different. Thanks again!!

 

You're welcome!! It's possible that it's 300mg/ml, but that's quite high...

You'd be giving 90mg per dose, which is definitely going to zonk a kitty out. We actually use 100mg Gaba for sedation/anxiety relief in kitties that are stressed at the vet, so if you're giving 90mg, you're likely to get that stoned/sedated effect.

 

I'm looking at the bottle, it says 300mg/ml & his dosage is .3ml (= 100mg)... does that sound better & help? But it doesn't seem to make him very dopey or dozy at all!! :-(

Again, I REALLY appreciate your assistance with this!!

We've sequestered him in a room with no hiding spots, he's out in the open & we're hoping that between giving him the max dose of gabapentin & no where to hide, we'll be able to easily scoop him up and get him into the carrier... at 4:30am, this upcoming morning.

I'd love to get a harness on him too, so that when we have to take him out of the carrier to get through the TSA screening we have some extra security - but as it is I contacted them & spoke to an agent directly who assured me when can go into a secure, private screening room at the very least.

Gonna be a rough night/morning!!!

 

My civi Moxie, about 8 pounds, is on 50 mg twice daily fir joint problems. She is also on Cosequin and Adequan. That is on the high side. For another cat at same practice but different vet, 25 mg twice daily was prescribed for a shot term problem