Hello all! I have been lurking on this site for weeks now, so I thought I'd go ahead and join the conversation. It has been a doozy of a few weeks.
My husband and I rescued Minnie in 2016 when she was about a year old. We picked her up off the street so we didn't have any information to go on other than she was sweet, snuggly, and adorable. She has always been rambunctious and energetic and has gotten herself into plenty of trouble these last five years. My husband and I are both completely and utterly obsessed with her.
A few months ago we noticed that Minnie was grooming her tail aggressively, and paying more attention to it than normal. I tend to overreact, and so I listened when my husband told me that it was probably nothing to worry about.
HUGE MISTAKE.
On January 10th of this year, Minnie was sleeping on my lap when I noticed that the tip of her tail was damp with blood. She went to the vets office the next day where they told us that she had been biting at her tail, and it was so badly damaged that they advised we amputate the last 2.5 inches, which we ultimately did later that week. At first her tail was healing well, but about a week or so after the initial amputation she developed an aggressive infection at the surgery site, which we believe has finally resolved.
Unfortunately, throughout this whole process she has continued to attempt to attack her tail. She has been in an e-collar since before the surgery and her tail was bandaged until about a week ago, but she still manages to step on it and attempt to bite it through her cone (which causes the cone to hit up against the tip). For weeks she's been going at it near constantly while she is awake, especially at night.
She was on an extremely high dose of gabapentin in the weeks following the surgery and it wasn't helping. After our regular vet recommended that we consult with a dermatologist, we were finally told that she in all likelihood has Feline Hyperesthesia. She took her off of gabapentin and put her on prednisolone for swelling and itching, amitriptyline for the behavior, and buprenorphine in the interim while the amitriptyline kicks in. She has been on these new meds for five days and her behavior has significantly improved. She is going after her tail a lot less frequently (4-5x a day rather than every waking moment) and the duration of the episodes are down to several seconds. I know the signs are promising, but I am nervous that they will all start up again when we take her off of the buprenorphine in a few days.
I know there are others on here that have gone through the same thing, so I guess I'm just hoping that there is someone out there with advice about how to get through these early days while we're still figuring things out.
My husband and I rescued Minnie in 2016 when she was about a year old. We picked her up off the street so we didn't have any information to go on other than she was sweet, snuggly, and adorable. She has always been rambunctious and energetic and has gotten herself into plenty of trouble these last five years. My husband and I are both completely and utterly obsessed with her.
A few months ago we noticed that Minnie was grooming her tail aggressively, and paying more attention to it than normal. I tend to overreact, and so I listened when my husband told me that it was probably nothing to worry about.
HUGE MISTAKE.
On January 10th of this year, Minnie was sleeping on my lap when I noticed that the tip of her tail was damp with blood. She went to the vets office the next day where they told us that she had been biting at her tail, and it was so badly damaged that they advised we amputate the last 2.5 inches, which we ultimately did later that week. At first her tail was healing well, but about a week or so after the initial amputation she developed an aggressive infection at the surgery site, which we believe has finally resolved.
Unfortunately, throughout this whole process she has continued to attempt to attack her tail. She has been in an e-collar since before the surgery and her tail was bandaged until about a week ago, but she still manages to step on it and attempt to bite it through her cone (which causes the cone to hit up against the tip). For weeks she's been going at it near constantly while she is awake, especially at night.
She was on an extremely high dose of gabapentin in the weeks following the surgery and it wasn't helping. After our regular vet recommended that we consult with a dermatologist, we were finally told that she in all likelihood has Feline Hyperesthesia. She took her off of gabapentin and put her on prednisolone for swelling and itching, amitriptyline for the behavior, and buprenorphine in the interim while the amitriptyline kicks in. She has been on these new meds for five days and her behavior has significantly improved. She is going after her tail a lot less frequently (4-5x a day rather than every waking moment) and the duration of the episodes are down to several seconds. I know the signs are promising, but I am nervous that they will all start up again when we take her off of the buprenorphine in a few days.
I know there are others on here that have gone through the same thing, so I guess I'm just hoping that there is someone out there with advice about how to get through these early days while we're still figuring things out.
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