My cat is on prednisone

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 01:35:25 GMT, Rhonda
wrote:

Yep, he had just one shot. He was losing some hair on his face due to
suspected allergies, and the (substitute) vet gave him a steroid shot. I
don't know if it was prednisone or what type. I didn't take him in
myself and the internist vet pointed it out to me later.

Anyway, he was originally fine expect for the problem on his face, then
within 3 weeks he started soaking the litter box. I petted him one day
and felt his spine and realized we had a serious problem. The vet did
blood tests and found the diabetes -- and he had lost 3 pounds in 3 weeks.

I think the search you did was on site articles instead of asking people
on the message board. When I was on the board, there were quite a number
of active participants with cats with steroid-induced diabetes. I just
posted a message on it and will let you know how they answer.

I don't feel guilty about the shot, but sad that it happened. He may
have developed diabetes later in life, but this set it in motion faster.
He was only 10 or 11. He had a horrible 1st year with it, including
bouts of pancreatitus, but was in control the 2nd year. Unfortunately,
he died of cancer, but I wonder if that would have developed so soon
without his system being compromised by everything else going on.

Rhonda


Thanks, I'm curious about that. My family is well aware of the
negative effects of cortisone. There are other treatments available
now for Crohn's disease and the other variants, but at least two of my
long dead relatives were really crazy because of the long term
cortisone usage. Plus lots of physical problems. A wonder drug
certainly, but not without some serious side effects. Not for long
term use unless there is no other option.

Okay, I have the results of steroid-induced diabetes from the feline
diabetes board. These are who answered in the last 2 days:

5 cats diabetic after taking prednisone
3 cats diabetic after 1 shot of depomedrol (that may be what our Bob was
given...)
1 cat diabetic after steroids, but type not mentioned

One of the cats that had a depo shot was only 6 months old, and was
given too large of a dose. I'm wondering if regular doses trigger cats
that are predisposed, but overdoses actually cause it? Bob was 10 or 11
and overweight, probably predisposed.

That kitten was a feral that was supposed to be re-released after
neuter, but ended up staying with the rescuer after the diagnosis. At
least the guy had a good life.

I don't know about the effect in people. Doesn't it cause kidney damage
with long-term use?

Sorry to hear about what your relatives went through.

Rhonda

dgk wrote:

Thanks, I'm curious about that. My family is well aware of the
negative effects of cortisone. There are other treatments available
now for Crohn's disease and the other variants, but at least two of my
long dead relatives were really crazy because of the long term
cortisone usage. Plus lots of physical problems. A wonder drug
certainly, but not without some serious side effects. Not for long
term use unless there is no other option.

Rhonda wrote:
Yep, he had just one shot. He was losing some hair on his face due to
suspected allergies

Like you said, you don't regret having give him the shot, it was the
lesser of two evils
(although, facial hair?, snicker) just kidding

MY CATS GOING BALD!

Rhonda! you're killin me smalls!

I don't understand how this happened...

I don't think the word is trigger.. what makes sense to me is the word
threshold.

Lets be honest, as much as most of us trust professionals, when it
comes to cats, I've read about some pretty clumsy vet doings... (read
about them on this group anyway)

Im not a vet, they know plenty and a helluvallot more than me, and hind
sight is 20/20, but we are still in the dark ages when it comes to cats
and medicine.

Rhonda wrote:
Okay, I have the results of steroid-induced diabetes from the feline
diabetes board. These are who answered in the last 2 days:

5 cats diabetic after taking prednisone
3 cats diabetic after 1 shot of depomedrol (that may be what our Bob was
given...)
1 cat diabetic after steroids, but type not mentioned


Did anybody respond that they did treat with prednisone and did not
have problems?

We had a dog on prednisone for 5 years due to allergies. Never had any
problem with her.

And this summer, Kira was getting worse until the vet put her on
prednisone. Her results had been getting worse on the previous
treatment. A week after starting prednisone, her bloodwork had
improved. Her bloodwork was returning to normal. She was gaing weight,
more active, and looking and acting healthy again. After she was back
to normal, the vet lowered her dosage to wean her off it. 3 weeks after
she was off the prednisone, the whole illness was back. This time, we
weren't fast enough and she died.

I would give anything to go back in time and keep her on the
prednisone. I would much rather deal with the risks than lose my cat.

Rhonda wrote:

Okay, I have the results of steroid-induced diabetes from the feline
diabetes board. These are who answered in the last 2 days:

5 cats diabetic after taking prednisone
3 cats diabetic after 1 shot of depomedrol (that may be what our Bob was
given...)
1 cat diabetic after steroids, but type not mentioned

One of the cats that had a depo shot was only 6 months old, and was
given too large of a dose. I'm wondering if regular doses trigger cats
that are predisposed, but overdoses actually cause it? Bob was 10 or 11
and overweight, probably predisposed.

I do computer system support for a cats-only clinic that seems to
drift through periods of drug-du-jour. When depo-medrol was in
favor, a lot of cats developed diabetes after several doses. They
use depo much less often now; I suspect it is for that reason.

Prednisone is metabolized into prednisolone in the liver, so it
might be preferred over prednisone where hepatic insufficiency is
present. (I am no expert).

The clinic prescribes prednisolone very often. I don't know whether
they have seen any linkage to diabetes. Steroids are all powerful
drugs with negatives that must be weighed. Dose and duration are
important.

Roby wrote:

I do computer system support for a cats-only clinic that seems to
drift through periods of drug-du-jour. When depo-medrol was in
favor, a lot of cats developed diabetes after several doses. They
use depo much less often now; I suspect it is for that reason.

Prednisone is metabolized into prednisolone in the liver, so it
might be preferred over prednisone where hepatic insufficiency is
present. (I am no expert).

The clinic prescribes prednisolone very often. I don't know whether
they have seen any linkage to diabetes. Steroids are all powerful
drugs with negatives that must be weighed. Dose and duration are
important.


This summer, I talked to an animal surgeon and talked about Bob. He said
that you do have to be very careful about those steroid allergy shots in
cats for that reason.

I think the potential benefits must be weighed, like you said. With what
we went through with Bob, I don't think we could give a cat steroids
again without it being a life and death situation.

Rhonda

wrote:

Did anybody respond that they did treat with prednisone and did not
have problems?

We had a dog on prednisone for 5 years due to allergies. Never had
any problem with her.

And this summer, Kira was getting worse until the vet put her on
prednisone. Her results had been getting worse on the previous
treatment. A week after starting prednisone, her bloodwork had
improved. Her bloodwork was returning to normal. She was gaing
weight, more active, and looking and acting healthy again. After she
was back to normal, the vet lowered her dosage to wean her off it. 3
weeks after she was off the prednisone, the whole illness was back.
This time, we weren't fast enough and she died.

I would give anything to go back in time and keep her on the
prednisone. I would much rather deal with the risks than lose my cat.

Hi M, on the diabetes group, I just asked if there was any cats with
steroid-induced diabetes. It really wasn't scientific, but someone on
this group thought it didn't sound right that a cat would get diabetes
with one shot. I was checking if there were others out there.

I don't know about dogs and diabetes, I haven't had a dog as an
adult.

I know that the ratio of diabetes is higher in cats than it is in humans.

We had a rabbit who was terminally ill with cancer. We chose, on our
vet's recommendation, to give him prednisone. We knew he was terminal
anyway, and she said the steroid might slow the cancer down. If we had
chosen to go with chemo, prednisone is the 1st phase of chemo. She
called prednisone the "eat, drink, and be merry" drug. It did perk him
up and he ate like a horse. I think it kept him going longer just
because he ate more and felt better.

Did you ever find out what was wrong with Kira?

Rhonda

Rhonda wrote:


Hi M, on the diabetes group, I just asked if there was any cats with
steroid-induced diabetes. It really wasn't scientific, but someone on
this group thought it didn't sound right that a cat would get diabetes
with one shot. I was checking if there were others out there.

I'm not familiar with the shots, only the pills. I did have a lady
freak out on me when she heard Kira was getting prednisone. She told me
it would give diabetes. I figured I was okay with that since I had
already done research on anemia and the success rate was 50/50 which is
really not good. And I had seen her her down on the first treatment and
improve on the prednisone. I did go back and do more research on a link
with diabetes. I found several sites that said it was a possibility,
but it seemed to be more of an unknown that still needed actual data to
confirm or reject.


Did you ever find out what was wrong with Kira?


Not for sure, but it looks like Kidney failure. Looking back, there was
more urine in the litterbox. Unfortunately, we have multiple boxes, and
they all seem to pee in the same corner of each box, so I though the
one box (the only one Kira was using at the time) was getting more
business from the other cats. I didn't think to ask if the other boxes
were declining in business, and I don't scoop all the boxes myself.

She was also hanging around the water bowl more, but I thought she was
just conserving engery as she was between the water bowl and litterbox.
Looking back, it makes sense and fits with kidney failure.

But at the same time, the bloodwork gave normal numbers for creatine
and bun, so there were no warning flags there. And when I looked up
kidney failure and anemia, it only referred to non-regenerative anemia.
Kira had regenerative, and was nowhere near the cutoff mark for the two
types. So, the behavioral symptoms and dehydration point to kidney
failure, but the bloodwork does not.

It just wasn't an obvious diagnosis, and there wasn't enough time to
catch it. I do wish that we had kept her on the prednisone at the lower
dosage or maybe retested her after a couple weeks instead of waiting a
month. But I can only file that away for future situations or advice
for somebody else when they need it.

We did have another scare yesterday, but it turned out okay. We got
back from errands, and my mom discovered that her cat was breathing
very loudly. Sounded bad. It was 4:45, and our vet is 20-30 minutes
away. My mom called, and they normally stop taking walk-ins at 5, but
said they would take her if she could get there at 5:15. She witnessed
an accident on the way and left her name and number and rushed to get
to the vet in time. Turns out she is having a allergies. We are
remodeling the house, and the new room had the ceiling and walls mudded
and sanded. So, there is a lot of dust all over. So, she has some meds
to help her, and my mom started wiping the walls down and mopping the
floors to get rid of the dust. It's a solid coat of white on the floor
in the new section.

So, the prognosis is good, though we will be watching carefully. The
vet couldn't hear any problems with her lungs, so it appears to be just
in her nose. But Kira started with a respiratory infection that looked
like allergies back in June. I know it really scared my mom. The loss
of Kira is so fresh right now, that even something small is potentially
very bad in our eyes.

My Traditional Siamese cat developed diabetes after being treated with
prednisone. He was allergic to something (never figured out what), and
was scratching off the fur on his neck and head.


Alan

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Wow, our problem started with suspected allergies too. That cleared up,
but I much rather would have continued with allergies than the problems
he got next.

Rhonda

wrote:
My Traditional Siamese cat developed diabetes after being treated with
prednisone. He was allergic to something (never figured out what), and
was scratching off the fur on his neck and head.


Alan