Cat aggression on Prednisolone

menorton

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Hello,

My cat Jaco (11 years) is a very sweet and loving cat who has never shown any aggression to people, or other cats. Back in Feb 2021, he was diagnosed with Small Cell Lymphoma and had to have surgery to remove the mass. He's now on a regimen of Chlorambucil (chemo) every other week and Prednisolone (2.5mg) every other day. For the first few months he was perfect, just like his old self albeit with a much higher appetite, which is fine. But for the last 2-3 months, he has been whooping the hell out of Bob, our other cat and much older (15 year). They both have plenty of food/water and we live in a decent size house, so there is plenty of space for everyone. He never used to do this before, even when the wife and I lived in a small apartment. In the last week or two, it has gotten so bad that when my wife tries to break up the cats, Jaco will hiss loudly at her. Today, after I gave him his pred and was done loving on him, he clawed at my ankle as I walked away and hissed. Was this just mad aggression? Angry that the scratches were stopping?

We tried the lavender cat collars to calm him, those were worthless. Yesterday we put in a Feliway Multi-Cat plugin in the main room (we need 7 days to see if its effective). This was on the advice of my vet. I asked if we could do pred every 3rd day, and the vet said that could lead to the cancer coming back.

Has any of you had experience with this? What did you do?

thanks yall!
 

Heart For Cats

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Welcome to TCS.

I never had this experience with prednisilone, but am aware it causes side effects. Unfortunately vets have a habit of prescribing it for all kinds of problems with different symptoms. If you see a clear connection between that drug and Jaco's behavior ask the vet if there is a non-steroidal alternative next time.
 

arr

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Our cat is on that exact same dose and schedule for 8 months now, and his behavior and appetite haven’t changed at all. Is there any possibility something else could have changed in the last few months?
 

fionasmom

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I am sorry you are facing this. My Chelsea is being treated for lymphoma in the same way and has never had these side effects. In fact, Chelsea has hyperesthesia, diagnosed by the vet, and for some ironic and unexplained reason it became much less of an issue once she was on pred. She initially took that alone until we moved into using chlorambucil as well.

I would not rule out some one in a million side effect.
Steroid Treatment - Effects in Cats
Do you think that your cat is having one of the more common side effects which is causing him to act out as a secondary issue? That is probably a very long shot. Since this did not start with the pred immediately, I wonder if something else is going on, including redirected aggression from something that he saw out a window.
 
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