Posted on r/askvet subreddit but cross posting here to see if anyone has had a similar experience or might have some insight. TLDR below as the full story is quite long.
Species - Feline
Age - 6 yo
Sex/Neuter Status - Female / Spayed
Breed - Domestic Longhair
Body Weight - 7ish lbs
History - Respiratory Infection as a kitten; Vestibular issues a year or two later which resolved; Cystitis and impacted feces a couple years ago which resolved
Clinical Signs - Noticed infected looking paw Thursday, brought her in Friday. Vet clipped off what turned out to be the ingrown toenail and dried up pus and blood, dressed the wound and casted the leg. No behavioral symptoms prior to sedation, was acting normal
Duration - Noticed paw Thursday, unsure exactly how long she had it before then. Once sedated did not come out of it for 15ish hours
General Location - NYC
Tests, X Rays, etc. - Blood was tested while sedated and all vitals monitored. Everything was normal
TLDR & Updates:
Cat was given the drugs Telazole, Convenia & Buprenex when brought in for an infected nail. Didn’t come out of sedation until 15 hours later. Bloodwork came back totally normal, heartbeat normal, breathing normal. Vet seemed to think she was dying. She is now home and very slowly getting back to her normal self besides being annoyed at the cast and seeming shaken up. Vet seems to think it’s a brain issue (tumor, cyst, etc.). Looks like Telazole and Buprenex can interact to increase the central nervous system depressant activities of the drugs. Thinking maybe this can be attributed to the extended sedation? Or could it actually be a brain issue.
Saturday Evening Update: She goes through times when she’s up and moving and fine. And times where she is extremely lethargic just laying down somewhere looking into the distance. Pretty unaffected by touch but also seeming comforted by it. Looks depressed almost. Also ate a lot earlier. Ate a whole 2 bowls today. She’s usually a fussy eater. Also giving her a laxative the vet prescribed. She seems to have been peeing a lot but no poop yet. She keeps going back to either the mat outside the litter box to lay down or sometimes she will sit in the litterbox for a while. Hoping she is a bit more herself in the morning.
Sunday Update: Definitely seems herself more and more but still acting a little strange. Hasn’t pooped still.
Monday Update: Behavior continues to normalize, albeit her being pretty annoyed at the cast and limping around. She did poop a tiny bit last night which is good. Still seems a bit shaken up and sad but is eating, drinking and being affectionate
Full Story:
So we noticed the other day that our 6 year old cat (7ish lbs) had what looked like an infected nail. Surprisingly enough she was running around, playing, kneading and acting totally normal with it.
Brought her into a vet that we could get a same day appointment with who told us that the nail was ingrown and quite infected. He clipped the nail, removed the crusted over pus and whatnot and then brought her into the surgery room to bandage up the foot/leg.
Unfortunately she wasn’t being very cooperative. I went in the room which calmed her down enough for them to get the cast on. Once that was done they injected her with an antibiotic injection (Convenia) and a painkiller (Buprenex).
Unfortunately right after the second injection she had a bit of a tantrum, scratching up the vet tech, falling off the table and flinging the cast off. At that point the vet said that she would need to be slightly sedated to get a new cast on. So he injected her with a small amount of Telazole and brought her in the backroom.
He came out shortly thereafter to say she was in a cage recovering in the back and would be good to go in 15 minutes. 15 minutes goes by, nothing. An hour goes by, nothing. Multiple hours go by and the vet is very confused as to why she’s not coming out of the sedation. We were sent home after a couple hours and told that he would stay with her all night, monitor her and do everything he can to bring her out of it.
He seemed convinced it had something to do with the liver or kidneys not processing the sedative correctly. He did bloodwork, everything came back normal. Breathing was normal, heartbeat was normal. But she was still pretty much unresponsive. Her temp dropped all the way to 92 before he got it to come back up to normal with warm towels and heated saline. Sounded like he treated her for a potential allergic reaction as well. In the middle of the night he sounded pretty shocked and very doubtful she would come around.
Very slowly overnight she seemed to be coming around. Her legs started to respond to stimulus. Eventually her head started to respond. Come morning, something like 15 hours after being sedated, she finally seemed to be coming to. We headed over to pick her up and bring her home. Vet said it was a miracle and seemed to think it must have something to do with the brain (brought up tumors and cysts). When we told him that she had a brief bout of vestibular disease as a kitten that seemed to confirm to him that there must be something wrong with the brain. Brought her home and she’s been sleeping a lot and very slowly returning to herself throughout the day.
I decided to look up the injections she had been given to begin this whole thing (Telazole, Convenia & Buprenex are the ones on my bill). I found that Tiletamine & Zolazepam (Telazole) both “may increase the central nervous system depressant (CNS depressant) activities of Buprenorphine (Buprenex)”. Unsure whether this could be an attributing factor.
As you can imagine this has been one of the worst nights of our lives thinking that our seemingly healthy 6 year old cat was all of a sudden on her deathbed. I find it hard to believe that she has had a tumor or something her entire life so far with no apparent symptoms. And I feel like that doesn’t really even seem to make much sense in relation to this situation?
She is now able to walk around the apartment. She is eating a lot of food. And mostly just laying around. She’s not too happy about the cast but is figuring out how to walk with it. Having trouble in the litter box though it seems. I’m very appreciative to the vet for staying up with her all night and doing all he did. It seems the combo of drugs used is not really uncommon so I’m not sure if the extended sedation could be attributed to that or not. Or could he be right about it being some sort of brain issue.
Species - Feline
Age - 6 yo
Sex/Neuter Status - Female / Spayed
Breed - Domestic Longhair
Body Weight - 7ish lbs
History - Respiratory Infection as a kitten; Vestibular issues a year or two later which resolved; Cystitis and impacted feces a couple years ago which resolved
Clinical Signs - Noticed infected looking paw Thursday, brought her in Friday. Vet clipped off what turned out to be the ingrown toenail and dried up pus and blood, dressed the wound and casted the leg. No behavioral symptoms prior to sedation, was acting normal
Duration - Noticed paw Thursday, unsure exactly how long she had it before then. Once sedated did not come out of it for 15ish hours
General Location - NYC
Tests, X Rays, etc. - Blood was tested while sedated and all vitals monitored. Everything was normal
TLDR & Updates:
Cat was given the drugs Telazole, Convenia & Buprenex when brought in for an infected nail. Didn’t come out of sedation until 15 hours later. Bloodwork came back totally normal, heartbeat normal, breathing normal. Vet seemed to think she was dying. She is now home and very slowly getting back to her normal self besides being annoyed at the cast and seeming shaken up. Vet seems to think it’s a brain issue (tumor, cyst, etc.). Looks like Telazole and Buprenex can interact to increase the central nervous system depressant activities of the drugs. Thinking maybe this can be attributed to the extended sedation? Or could it actually be a brain issue.
Saturday Evening Update: She goes through times when she’s up and moving and fine. And times where she is extremely lethargic just laying down somewhere looking into the distance. Pretty unaffected by touch but also seeming comforted by it. Looks depressed almost. Also ate a lot earlier. Ate a whole 2 bowls today. She’s usually a fussy eater. Also giving her a laxative the vet prescribed. She seems to have been peeing a lot but no poop yet. She keeps going back to either the mat outside the litter box to lay down or sometimes she will sit in the litterbox for a while. Hoping she is a bit more herself in the morning.
Sunday Update: Definitely seems herself more and more but still acting a little strange. Hasn’t pooped still.
Monday Update: Behavior continues to normalize, albeit her being pretty annoyed at the cast and limping around. She did poop a tiny bit last night which is good. Still seems a bit shaken up and sad but is eating, drinking and being affectionate
Full Story:
So we noticed the other day that our 6 year old cat (7ish lbs) had what looked like an infected nail. Surprisingly enough she was running around, playing, kneading and acting totally normal with it.
Brought her into a vet that we could get a same day appointment with who told us that the nail was ingrown and quite infected. He clipped the nail, removed the crusted over pus and whatnot and then brought her into the surgery room to bandage up the foot/leg.
Unfortunately she wasn’t being very cooperative. I went in the room which calmed her down enough for them to get the cast on. Once that was done they injected her with an antibiotic injection (Convenia) and a painkiller (Buprenex).
Unfortunately right after the second injection she had a bit of a tantrum, scratching up the vet tech, falling off the table and flinging the cast off. At that point the vet said that she would need to be slightly sedated to get a new cast on. So he injected her with a small amount of Telazole and brought her in the backroom.
He came out shortly thereafter to say she was in a cage recovering in the back and would be good to go in 15 minutes. 15 minutes goes by, nothing. An hour goes by, nothing. Multiple hours go by and the vet is very confused as to why she’s not coming out of the sedation. We were sent home after a couple hours and told that he would stay with her all night, monitor her and do everything he can to bring her out of it.
He seemed convinced it had something to do with the liver or kidneys not processing the sedative correctly. He did bloodwork, everything came back normal. Breathing was normal, heartbeat was normal. But she was still pretty much unresponsive. Her temp dropped all the way to 92 before he got it to come back up to normal with warm towels and heated saline. Sounded like he treated her for a potential allergic reaction as well. In the middle of the night he sounded pretty shocked and very doubtful she would come around.
Very slowly overnight she seemed to be coming around. Her legs started to respond to stimulus. Eventually her head started to respond. Come morning, something like 15 hours after being sedated, she finally seemed to be coming to. We headed over to pick her up and bring her home. Vet said it was a miracle and seemed to think it must have something to do with the brain (brought up tumors and cysts). When we told him that she had a brief bout of vestibular disease as a kitten that seemed to confirm to him that there must be something wrong with the brain. Brought her home and she’s been sleeping a lot and very slowly returning to herself throughout the day.
I decided to look up the injections she had been given to begin this whole thing (Telazole, Convenia & Buprenex are the ones on my bill). I found that Tiletamine & Zolazepam (Telazole) both “may increase the central nervous system depressant (CNS depressant) activities of Buprenorphine (Buprenex)”. Unsure whether this could be an attributing factor.
As you can imagine this has been one of the worst nights of our lives thinking that our seemingly healthy 6 year old cat was all of a sudden on her deathbed. I find it hard to believe that she has had a tumor or something her entire life so far with no apparent symptoms. And I feel like that doesn’t really even seem to make much sense in relation to this situation?
She is now able to walk around the apartment. She is eating a lot of food. And mostly just laying around. She’s not too happy about the cast but is figuring out how to walk with it. Having trouble in the litter box though it seems. I’m very appreciative to the vet for staying up with her all night and doing all he did. It seems the combo of drugs used is not really uncommon so I’m not sure if the extended sedation could be attributed to that or not. Or could he be right about it being some sort of brain issue.
, hopefully she'll begin to poop more normally. 
