Help With Flovent Directions

My kitty has been recently diagnosed with asthma, and we were recently prescribed Flovent with the Aerokat attachment. I understand how to use the Aerokat. The Flovent inhaler has directions with it, but are meant for a human. For example, it says to rinse your mouth with water and spit it out after using the inhaler. How do you do this with a cat? I've also seem that some people wipe their cats face with a damp cloth after, other people so not. What steps do you do to you use your Flovent inhaler with your cat?

KJIA said:

The Flovent inhaler has directions with it, but are meant for a human. For example, it says to rinse your mouth with water and spit it out after using the inhaler. How do you do this with a cat?

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You don't When you're done giving the Flovent puffs, just remove the Aerokat mask from your cat's face and let your cat go about his normal business. You don't need to wipe the cat's face off either.

I don't do anything afterward, except give him a treat.

Thanks for the tips! How many breaths do you have your cat breathe into the Aerokat chamber? With a pill, I can easily make sure she swallows it. With an aerosol, you can't see anything so it's hard to tell if she's getting all the medication. I guess improvement of her symptoms will be the evidence it's working properly!

Ask the vet how many puffs of Flovent your cat needs. There's a little flap in the Aerokat that moves as the cat breathes so you just count that for X number of times per the vet's instructions. It might be something like "one puff twice a day. Count for 30 breaths".

I am a physician, not a vet but I also suffer from asthma. The reason why humans should rinse their mouths out after use is because the inhaler contains a steroid and this has been known to contribute to thrush of the mouth. This can be avoided by rinsing out the inhaler liquid after use or by gargling. The mind boggles at teaching your cat to gargle!!

Certainly I have had patients who do not rinse out their mouths and no harm has come to them and Thrush is not common in human patients who do not follow the instructions in any case. I suspect that the instructions on the packet are also for legal reasons.

As it seems impossible for you to comply with these instructions - and humans are different from cats, I would not hesitate to ignore them in a cat, but it would be a good idea to ask your vet if the inhaler has ever caused any Thrush problems in cats and if so in what proportion.
With all best wishes,
Geoffrey

I personally would recommend gently wiping the area where the Flovent masks sits on the cat's face. My kitty uses the aerokat/Flovent, and she has a few spots of hair near her whiskers that have turned brownish/reddish. (I'll see if I can come up with a good photo, if you're interested in my anecdote.) This is pretty much right where the mask is placed on a daily basis, so I think it is from the steroid sitting on the hairs. I didn't wipe her mouth and whiskers during the first part of her use of flovent and aerokat; however, since I've noticed the brown hair "dots" on her, I now wipe her face off each time, in the hopes the steroid won't continue to 'discolor' her hair.

This is from another post of mine, but I'll quote it here:

"My own cat, a black and white tuxedo, must take Flovent and steroids for her allergies/asthma, and the excess steroids show up in her saliva causing the hair where she most often licks (like her inner forearms, as she washes her face) to turn brown. She is black everywhere else. Also, some teensy sections of the hair on her face near her whiskers, where the Flovent mask is placed on a daily basis, have a smidgeon of brown. The steroids obviously have some influence on melanin, tyrosine, at the least."

KJIA said:

Thanks for the tips! How many breaths do you have your cat breathe into the Aerokat chamber? With a pill, I can easily make sure she swallows it. With an aerosol, you can't see anything so it's hard to tell if she's getting all the medication. I guess improvement of her symptoms will be the evidence it's working properly!

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I give mine 10 (in one sitting), but check with your vet, your kitty may need more, may need less.

I give mine 7-10 breaths 1x a day. Orange Flovent puffer via the Aerokat. Check with your vet. Let us know how administering it is going!