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#1
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CHLORPHENIRAMINE (Chlortrimeton) for Cats?
My cat Noodles has asthma an allergies to various things. She gets steroid shots at long intervals, and I take the usual precautions by keeping the windows closed, air filters on, duct vacuumed, etc. We have identified foods that cause her the least trouble, and she is on them. However, she recently began scratching a lot, to the point that there are bare spots on her ears. I took her to the vet and he saw no parasites (she is indoor) or other causes. He told me to give her CHLORPHENIRAMINE (Chlortrimeton) 2 mgs every 12 hours when she is itchy or when she has congestion. He once had me do that when she had sniffles, too. It makes her really sleepy, but then she is a cat and sleeps a lot anyway. Anybody else here have experience with using this drug on cats? Is there anything I need to know? TIA |
#2
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Yes, I've used it for a couple of cats, but I do think my dosage level was
higher. I'll look it up. It made my cat very drowsy, and I don't like that, but I suppose it worked. "Mowzer" wrote in message news:aHlwYXRpYQ==.4fe4c349a3d4fde7d3b28397e779a577 @1125791093.nulluser.com... My cat Noodles has asthma an allergies to various things. She gets steroid shots at long intervals, and I take the usual precautions by keeping the windows closed, air filters on, duct vacuumed, etc. We have identified foods that cause her the least trouble, and she is on them. However, she recently began scratching a lot, to the point that there are bare spots on her ears. I took her to the vet and he saw no parasites (she is indoor) or other causes. He told me to give her CHLORPHENIRAMINE (Chlortrimeton) 2 mgs every 12 hours when she is itchy or when she has congestion. He once had me do that when she had sniffles, too. It makes her really sleepy, but then she is a cat and sleeps a lot anyway. Anybody else here have experience with using this drug on cats? Is there anything I need to know? TIA |
#3
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Betsy wrote:
Yes, I've used it for a couple of cats, but I do think my dosage level was higher. I'll look it up. It made my cat very drowsy, and I don't like that, but I suppose it worked. Thanks, Betsy. What did you use it for? Does your cat have chronic allergy/congestion problems, of did he/she just have a cold? I definitely don't like making Noodles more sleepy than she already is, either. I did not think to ask my vet if there is something that does not cause sleepiness. Do you know of anything? |
#4
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On Sun 04 Sep 2005 06:44:08p, Mowzer wrote in
rec.pets.cats.health+behav (news:aHlwYXRpYQ==.b9af060f93351a16300f7454deefb4d user.com): ^^^^^^^^^ nulluser.com resolves to COTSE, Mary/Nancy's favorite anonymous remailer Betsy wrote: Yes, I've used it for a couple of cats, but I do think my dosage level was higher. I'll look it up. It made my cat very drowsy, and I don't like that, but I suppose it worked. Thanks, Betsy. What did you use it for? Does your cat have chronic allergy/congestion problems, of did he/she just have a cold? I definitely don't like making Noodles more sleepy than she already is, either. I did not think to ask my vet if there is something that does not cause sleepiness. Do you know of anything? Mary/Nancy/Marilyn/Drew - Cheeky/Noodles will have her runny nose dried out with Chlortrimeton. It's used often for kittens with runny noses to just dry them out, it was prescribed for my Bonnie (about 3 years old) recently for her nosy/snorty noise that she keeps making. -- Cheryl "The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath." - W.C. Fields |
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I have a cat with herpes and it helped her a little, but it made her so
drowsy. I also have used it for a cat with skin allergies. "Cheryl" wrote in message ... On Sun 04 Sep 2005 06:44:08p, Mowzer wrote in rec.pets.cats.health+behav (news:aHlwYXRpYQ==.b9af060f93351a16300f7454deefb4d user.com): ^^^^^^^^^ nulluser.com resolves to COTSE, Mary/Nancy's favorite anonymous remailer Betsy wrote: Yes, I've used it for a couple of cats, but I do think my dosage level was higher. I'll look it up. It made my cat very drowsy, and I don't like that, but I suppose it worked. Thanks, Betsy. What did you use it for? Does your cat have chronic allergy/congestion problems, of did he/she just have a cold? I definitely don't like making Noodles more sleepy than she already is, either. I did not think to ask my vet if there is something that does not cause sleepiness. Do you know of anything? Mary/Nancy/Marilyn/Drew - Cheeky/Noodles will have her runny nose dried out with Chlortrimeton. It's used often for kittens with runny noses to just dry them out, it was prescribed for my Bonnie (about 3 years old) recently for her nosy/snorty noise that she keeps making. -- Cheryl "The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath." - W.C. Fields |
#6
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Mowzer wrote:
However, she recently began scratching a lot, to the point that there are bare spots on her ears. I took her to the vet and he saw no parasites (she is indoor) or other causes. He told me to give her CHLORPHENIRAMINE (Chlortrimeton) 2 mgs every 12 hours when she is itchy or when she has congestion. He once had me do that when she had sniffles, too. It makes her really sleepy, but then she is a cat and sleeps a lot anyway. Have you tried reducing the dosage? 2 mgs seemed high for a cat. If I'm not mistaken, 4 mgs is the average adult dose and that's referenced to a 150 pound human [forget if it's gender tied]. A cat at 10 pounds would be 1/15th of the "average" human's weight. I am not surprised that she is sleeping. 2 mgs is what I would give a 75 pound cat. Like a baby tiger. But hold on while I research this on the internet... I tried just now on the internet, but everything is so dumbed down. But I have it in my medicine cabinet, and 4 mgs is the adult's dosage and 4 mg makes me sleepy! In any case, if it were my cat and my cat weighed 10 pounds, I would give her 4 mg x 1/15 or in your case 2 mg x 1/7.5 = 0.27mg or about 1/4 of 1 milligram. But that's before I found some vet stuff on the internet... In other words, break the pill down into little bits. You can even grind it up and use about 1/7.5 or 1/8th of 1 pill. That's a half of 1 quarter. Cut a pill into 4 quarters and then take the quarters and cut them again. That's 1/8th. My rule of reckoning is for a 10 pound cat, it's 1/15th the normal adult dosage, predicated on 150 pound human being. Last I looked in a vet reference, that was what I read. Makes sense to me unless there's something unique about this antihistamine. I would be concerned about over-dosing the cat with 2 mg b.i.d. Fortunately, this particular antihistamine is fairly safe. I would reduce the dosage for your cat's safety and for sleepiness. I would not be surprised if this worked out well. Work up to a dosage that works instead of down. Okay, I went on the internet and looked this drug up, Googled "chlorpheniramine" and the word "feline": http://www.1800petmeds.com/pdetail.a...=cat&MG=4&PT=4 "The Usual Dose In Cats Is 1-2mg By Mouth Every 8 To 12 Hours." So apparently the vet is following the usual dosage. And some thing that sleepiness may be why the drug works, kind of sedating the cat instead. This still boggles my poor brain why felines are given almost the human dosage. I can only guess that this drug is special and the feline gut is short and on and on. Anybody know something? In any case, cut the dosage at least in half. And if that works, cut it again. My rule is to give the minimum necessary. I am still perplexed by the large amount but this is probably a special case. When I gave my cat Clindamycin, in the vet reference, it was about 1/15th the human dosage for a 10 pound cat. I can't remember if I read that exactly. Anyway that is what I did and it worked perfectly to clear up her diarrhea which was bacteria caused, I suspected, from eating a wild mouse. |
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#10
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Mowzer wrote:
wrote: Oh, another thing, if the vet "saw" no parasites, did he check for giardia or cryptosporidium? There are parasites that might not be visible, but the cat would be scratching her tummy area? HOWEVER an indoor cat can get parasites. How? It's not unusual for even municipal water supplies to be harboring the parasites I just mentioned. I don't know if he did. I will call and ask, thank you. She doesn't scratch her tummy, though, that i have seen. Just her ears lately. Good carbon filters with small openings, like .5 micron will get rid of these parasites. This, by the way, is a big problem with humans who have compromised immune systems, such as AIDS, IIRC. It's unpleasant but our water supply is not all it should be in many places. I need to replace my carbon filters. I used fairly big under-sink ones that two good ones run from $33 to $50 depending on what I'm trying to keep out. I had no idea, how creepy!! Better get some of those filters. Do yuo mean like the ones you put on faucets, like "PUR?" Or what do you use? The ones on the faucets are usually way too small and ineffective. The filters I use are the standard and fairly large, like a quart bottle. Sears still sells them although I don't know if they still sell the housings. GE now sells a lot but they are a little smallers. Home Depot has GE. I found that almost all the big names used the same size filters, Ametek / US Filter / Plymouth / Pentek / Culligan / Kleen Plus / American Plumber / Bruner / Many Others. The filters might be different. I have a double filter housing but I needed to plumb it into my pipes under the sink. It's not difficult but it's something you could do if you're careful. It's probably trivial for any plumber to do. I tap into a pipe and voila, just about. I'm finding it harder to find the simple biggish housings that were universal size for almost any filter made. You can even get bigger housings that can do a whole house, whose filter is like a half-gallon almost. I prefer an undersink one with its own little faucet so it lasts a long time and I am not wasting water on washing dishes. Just for drinking and cooking. THe really good filters, at least one with 0.5 micron openings, will slow the water down so another reason to have it separate where I don't care if it takes a minute or two to fill a gallon jug. These big filters are usually good for even gasoline sutff, MTBE, for about 6 months or 750 gallons. If that's not a concern, they can last for a year or over 1000 gallons of water. Those little things on the faucet never seems to go much beyond 20 gallons. They are just too tiny. But before you do anything, ask for a copy of the annual water report from your municipal authority. They usually test for parasites. You can discuss this with them, your water manager. This report is usually a freebie and in the smaller towns, it's often sent for free. In the big cities, you have to ask for it since it might have some info you don't want to know about This stuff improves the quality of the water. It's a good compromise before the next step which are three filter units with reverse osmosis. That requires more hassles but is pretty good. Now distillation is yet another thing. But first get your water report so you know what baddies, if any, to get rid of. You might be lucky and your water authority does a superb job like using ultraviolet which is wonderful, no bad side products like what happens when using chlorine or chloramine, which is the more common way for water public purification systems. I could go on about this forever. I bought my Sears / Ametek unit decades ago based on Consumers Report. It has a meter so I know how much water is being filtered. And it's the old-fashioned universal size, biggish, so the new and old and residential and industrial filters all can fit inside. It's not that big really. About the size of a briefcase. |
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