Experience with Mirtazapine?

bananamillie

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Hi folks, wanted to see if anyone has used Mirtazapine (either pill or gel) for their cats, and seen results?

Our vet has prescribed Mirtazapine for our 13 yr old cat diagnosed with early kidney disease because she wouldn't eat large amounts of her kidney food.
I'm sure this had nothing to do with her appetite, but rather her preferences. The vet insisted that she stay on the kidney diet and use Mirtazapine to get her to eat more of it.
This has not worked out great. Cat is now hungry and upset that she's not getting the food she likes.
I'm now switching her onto non-vet food which is higher in protein but low phosphorous.

I'm also seeing a dip in her appetite once the Mirtaz wears off. She has not been thrilled about eating in general since we tried to switch her food up few weeks ago.
She was doing great till then.

Does anyone have any experience or insight on the following -
- How long can a cat stay on Mirtazapine?
- Has it stopped working at any point?
- I may be paranoid, but I'm noticing that she's drinking less water after taking it. Has anyone experienced this?
- Any side effects to watch out for?
 

fionasmom

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I have only used mirtazapine (often) over the years in cats who did not have a good prognosis but for whom we were trying to buy a little time. They were all probably more ill than your cat, not necessarily with kidney disease. As such, it was only used in the short term but I did notice a dip in appetite when it stopped.....whether due to worsening condition or withdrawl of the drug is uncertain. It has never been given to me to encourage a cat to eat food that was not appealing.
 

kittenmittens84

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My cat was prescribed transdermal mirtaz when he was sick with FIP and didn’t want to eat due to nausea. It worked ok on its own, but it worked far better once we added in an anti-nausea med as well. No side effects that I noticed, although the vet did warn us that the oral version can cause tremors in some cats which is one reason they usually use the ear gel form.
If you’re concerned about water intake and she’s eating wet food it’s probably fine but you could always mix a spoonful of water into her food.

As far as food palatability goes, some cats seem to really like Fortiflora probiotic powder, enough that people will recommend sprinkling it on food to entice picky cats to eat.
 
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bananamillie

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Furballsmom Furballsmom Thank you! I will read through those threads :)

fionasmom fionasmom Thank you! We paused her oral dose for a day and there was an immediate dip in appetite so we had to start her on it again. We're just trying to feed her food that she likes at this point but she's really unhappy with the diet changes. She licks a bit at Weruva but will only enthusiastically eat Beechnut turkey baby food.

K kittensmittens1373 Thank you for sharing! We currently have her on the oral pills, but only because the vet didn't have the gel and we had to order it from Chewy. Still waiting on it to arrive. We've tried Fortiflora, but didn't get the sense that she was eating more because of it.
 
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bananamillie

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K kittensmittens1373 Did your kitty have nausea due to mirtazapine? Our cat has been extremely lethargic 72 hours after her 2nd dose (which had probably worn off at that point). Not much of an appetite and hyper salivation.

Ended up taking her to emergency where they gave her an anti nausea shot and nausea pills to give her over the next few days.
They didn't see any cause for concern but I am quite worried as she is extremely lethargic.
She apparently ran across the floor at the vets and jumped into a bookcase, which I will chalk up to adrenaline. She's not moving at all at home other than to adjust her resting position.
 

Furballsmom

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You could possibly take a video and show the vets what little activity she's doing. Hang in there!!
 

amandag1

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Hi folks, wanted to see if anyone has used Mirtazapine (either pill or gel) for their cats, and seen results?

Our vet has prescribed Mirtazapine for our 13 yr old cat diagnosed with early kidney disease because she wouldn't eat large amounts of her kidney food.
I'm sure this had nothing to do with her appetite, but rather her preferences. The vet insisted that she stay on the kidney diet and use Mirtazapine to get her to eat more of it.
This has not worked out great. Cat is now hungry and upset that she's not getting the food she likes.
I'm now switching her onto non-vet food which is higher in protein but low phosphorous.

I'm also seeing a dip in her appetite once the Mirtaz wears off. She has not been thrilled about eating in general since we tried to switch her food up few weeks ago.
She was doing great till then.

Does anyone have any experience or insight on the following -
- How long can a cat stay on Mirtazapine?
- Has it stopped working at any point?
- I may be paranoid, but I'm noticing that she's drinking less water after taking it. Has anyone experienced this?
- Any side effects to watch out for?
While kidney diets are great, if she was doing fine maybe looking for low phosphorus foods but still giving her some of what she likes may be best.
A fed cat is better than a cat refusing to eat.... kind of like fed is best in the breastfreeding/ formula discussion.
 

amandag1

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Ive also had my boy on mirtazepine daily- the pill. I give him the 7.5mg cut into FOURTHS. So he gets about 1.87 mg and this works way better with less drowsiness and weird behaviour than 3.25 mg every other day (which is what the vet wanted..)
I read a paper saying more adverse effects are seen at the higher dose so cutting it into 4th works good , or MIRATAZ gel does about 1.88 mg delivery via transdermal gel.
The gel unfortunately made my boys ears get dry and scabby so we went for the pill.
 
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bananamillie

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Turns out the Mirtazapine was not great for our cat.

She had really strange behavior 36-48 hours after giving her the Mirt., even on a small dose.
Her first dose was uneventful, but after the second and third dose she had bouts of extreme lethargy followed by extreme restlessness and hyper-salivation.
Although her appetite did improve soon after the dose, the strange behavior was enough for us to stop giving her the Mirt.
 

WeHave4

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Hi folks, wanted to see if anyone has used Mirtazapine (either pill or gel) for their cats, and seen results?

Our vet has prescribed Mirtazapine for our 13 yr old cat diagnosed with early kidney disease because she wouldn't eat large amounts of her kidney food.
I'm sure this had nothing to do with her appetite, but rather her preferences. The vet insisted that she stay on the kidney diet and use Mirtazapine to get her to eat more of it.
This has not worked out great. Cat is now hungry and upset that she's not getting the food she likes.
I'm now switching her onto non-vet food which is higher in protein but low phosphorous.

I'm also seeing a dip in her appetite once the Mirtaz wears off. She has not been thrilled about eating in general since we tried to switch her food up few weeks ago.
She was doing great till then.

Does anyone have any experience or insight on the following -
- How long can a cat stay on Mirtazapine?
- Has it stopped working at any point?
- I may be paranoid, but I'm noticing that she's drinking less water after taking it. Has anyone experienced this?
- Any side effects to watch out for?
Our cat Alice has been on prednisolone, 2.5 mg/day for an undiagnosed condition, the only thing noticed being raised levels in her pancreas. The chief concern was lack of appetite. and occasionally vomiting of her food. For the most part, this worked, but sometimes it wasn't enough. This is where the mirtazapine comes in,being used as an adjunct to prednisolone. The prescribed doseage was 1/4 tablet (3.75 mg) given 72 hours apart, and a max of 3 doses. Even at the time, this seemed strange. The first thing I noticed was that, given her reaction to it, the doseage was WAY TOO HIGH. And I could find no concerns whatsoever.about long term use. The vet simply had a bias against it. Strange. Then I discovered that the recommended doseage had been lowered to 1/8th tablet (1.875 mg), with again, no objection to it being used long term. The objection to its use appears to have been based simply on the often scary response, which was 100% due to the WAY TOO HIGH doseage. As anyone who has attempted cutting pills even into fourths, let alone eighths, the results are less than satisfactory, resulting in pieces tending to be all over the map, including crumbs. So, when I began attempting to cut them into eights, I began to notice that the smaller ones still had an effect, but without all the drama - drooling, hiding, then vocalization, and demanding food. I didn't want or need a sledgehammer when just a slight tap from a tack hammer would do. But, how to administer such tiny pieces? Simple. Take a tiny piece of bread (white) and incorporate the tiny piece into it, making a "pill"., to be administered the same way as the pred. But there was little control still on the amount. So, I began crushing a half pill, a known amount, and making a line of the powder, which I then divided in half, then in half again, and again, using a magnifier to help. After continually decreasing the doseage, I got it down to 1/100th, and I also made some slightly stronger, about 1/70th. They work great. One tablet lasts for months. Our current vet is fine with it. Had to go thru two bad vets to find a good one. Oh yeah, the bad ones will insist on using the gel form, Mirataz. There are drawbacks to that, not to mention it being WAY MORE EXPENSIVE. If they insist on Mirataz, find another vet.
 

busychild

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Our cat Alice has been on prednisolone, 2.5 mg/day for an undiagnosed condition, the only thing noticed being raised levels in her pancreas. The chief concern was lack of appetite. and occasionally vomiting of her food. For the most part, this worked, but sometimes it wasn't enough. This is where the mirtazapine comes in,being used as an adjunct to prednisolone. The prescribed doseage was 1/4 tablet (3.75 mg) given 72 hours apart, and a max of 3 doses. Even at the time, this seemed strange. The first thing I noticed was that, given her reaction to it, the doseage was WAY TOO HIGH. And I could find no concerns whatsoever.about long term use. The vet simply had a bias against it. Strange. Then I discovered that the recommended doseage had been lowered to 1/8th tablet (1.875 mg), with again, no objection to it being used long term. The objection to its use appears to have been based simply on the often scary response, which was 100% due to the WAY TOO HIGH doseage. As anyone who has attempted cutting pills even into fourths, let alone eighths, the results are less than satisfactory, resulting in pieces tending to be all over the map, including crumbs. So, when I began attempting to cut them into eights, I began to notice that the smaller ones still had an effect, but without all the drama - drooling, hiding, then vocalization, and demanding food. I didn't want or need a sledgehammer when just a slight tap from a tack hammer would do. But, how to administer such tiny pieces? Simple. Take a tiny piece of bread (white) and incorporate the tiny piece into it, making a "pill"., to be administered the same way as the pred. But there was little control still on the amount. So, I began crushing a half pill, a known amount, and making a line of the powder, which I then divided in half, then in half again, and again, using a magnifier to help. After continually decreasing the doseage, I got it down to 1/100th, and I also made some slightly stronger, about 1/70th. They work great. One tablet lasts for months. Our current vet is fine with it. Had to go thru two bad vets to find a good one. Oh yeah, the bad ones will insist on using the gel form, Mirataz. There are drawbacks to that, not to mention it being WAY MORE EXPENSIVE. If they insist on Mirataz, find another vet.
I know this thread is old but this was helpful beyond anything I've found so far! My girl had a bad reaction to her prescribed dose (7.5mg for a 6lb cat.....I know). I can tell by splitting the first pill that quartering them will be difficult, and I had the powdering idea myself. How do you deliver the powdered Mirtazapine? It's worked a bit for her appetite, but I'm not putting her through the effects of that large dose again. Very encouraged by the anecdotal results of the smaller doses on appetite vs. side effects.
 

FriendofFerals

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Does anyone have any experience or insight on the following -
- How long can a cat stay on Mirtazapine?
- Has it stopped working at any point?
- I may be paranoid, but I'm noticing that she's drinking less water after taking it. Has anyone experienced this?
- Any side effects to watch out for?
My stage 2 CKD 13 year old Maine Coon mix (also type II diabetes in remission) needs 1/4 pill of Mirtazapine (or less...crumbs) whenever I see his interest in his meals falls off. He's a dry food junkie and simply can't have it. He may get a topper of Young Again Mature L/D to get him started on the low-phosphorous food but when all he wants is the dry, it's Mirtaz time.

And I'm not super happy about how it affects him. For around 36 hours after 1/4 or less dose, he's very vocal, hyper-attentive (on me...like feed me what I want) and he goes into overgrooming/licking mode--on me. On my arm, face, whatever he can get near, and sometimes he wakes me up several times a night purring and licking. It's the serotonin boost that does that. After that, he calms down, the levels regulate and I notice in the morning when the other two are excited for breakfast he seems more so than before but I would never label this one as enthusiastic about any food that isn't crap dry food.

Thankfully we haven't needed Mirtazapine more than occasionally, but if he needed an appetite stimulant more than once a week we would need to find other options (for my own sanity's sake).
 
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