Hyperesthesia: Gabapentin or not?

[ramscici]

Thank you for the suggestion, Elvisrocks — I will definitely check it out, I really appreciate it! I do feel like I need to join some support group of people because you are correct, it doesn’t seem vets have a ton of answers about this disorder and it’s very hard to watch your kitty have to go through. I want to do everything right by her and help in any way possible. Celeste is on 50mg of gabapentin every 8 hours right now and though I have seen some improvement with the back rippling, she still seems to be trying to get at her tail and it hasn’t kicked the anxiety and overgrooming. I noticed it happens to her at night when she is settling down for bed or after mealtimes.

fionasmom as always thank you for the support and response, I really needed to read it. I keep feeling like I’m doing something wrong here, but I don’t know exactly what could have been done differently. It’s always nice to hear you aren’t alone.

 

[fionasmom]

FHS is tricky, so stay in touch with the vet about dosage and anecdotal observations of what Celeste is doing. You are not bothering them with questions as this is not a condition where you administer antibiotics for 10 days and it goes away.

 

[ramscici]

Happy update for this evening. I decided to try out the ThunderShirt just to give it a whirl, not expecting much, and lo and behold she has shown an amazing response to it. As soon as she got over her initial annoyance at us putting it on, she started purring, kneading, and she hasn’t tried to get at her tail once— we’ve even been able to take the cone off for a little (with supervision of course). I can’t believe how much of an immediate improvement this has given us. Celeste has always been a tactile cat and has come to cuddle with me sometimes when she has bad episodes, so I highly recommend giving this vest a try if your cat is similar.

 

[fionasmom]

Great news! I have heard good things about thunder shirts for years. Please let us know if this is part of, or all of, the solution. What a happy looking little kitty!

 

[ramscici]

Hi everyone, I wanted to give an update here just in case it helps anyone else trying to get answers to this frustrating disorder.

Unfortunately though the ThunderShirt does help Celeste a lot, it is not the cure and she has continued to be very difficult to help throughout April and May. I took her to see a few different vets, many of whom were dismissive of my FHS concerns until the last one. She bit her tail a couple more times and so severely that her bone was sticking out.

She is on fluoxetine (Prozac) 5mg once a day as of April 10 and Gabapentin 100mg twice a day. She is still in a cone because even though her tail is finally healing, she is unfortunately still fixating on it when she can see it.

I will be taking her to see a neurologist who was referred to me and that does treat FHS. I highly recommend if you’re struggling with this disorder with your cat to get some information from the Facebook group “Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome-Feline Psychomotor Epilepsy” The admins there are very experienced in helping cats with FHS and can provide a lot of great resources and medication info, plus it’s great to hear other anecdotes too.

I will continue to update here as well, and am keeping my fingers crossed for my little CiCi

 

[fionasmom]

Please keep us posted as to what the neurologist says. You are doing the right thing to continue to look for a solution for CiCi.

Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome-Feline Psychomotor Epilepsy | Facebook

 

[Burts]

Allie has hyperesthesia for 2 years now but does not mutilate, she was -rescribed gaba but i never gave it to her...When episodes start interfering with her life too much I give her daily holistapet cbd

I also have a outdoor tent i put her in to help distract her, distraction works for my cat sometimes

facebook has 2 hyperesthesia groups

 

[ramscici]

Allie has hyperesthesia for 2 years now but does not mutilate, she was -rescribed gaba but i never gave it to her...When episodes start interfering with her life too much I give her daily holistapet cbd

I also have a outdoor tent i put her in to help distract her, distraction works for my cat sometimes

facebook has 2 hyperesthesia groups

Unfortunately CBD did not work for Celeste, I gave that a try too. Not until she got on Prozac and Gabapentin did I start to see improvement. The ThunderShirt helps too during bad days and while I was waiting for the meds to kick in (SSRIs can take up to 4 months in cats to see the full results and Celeste still has only been on it for a little over a month). From what I have learned, cats with tail chasing and mutilating in particular will need an antidepressant like Prozac or Amytriptyline to stop the behavior, ideally on top of an anticonvulsant like gabapentin.

 

[ramscici]

Hello everyone. Updating again…

Celeste has been officially cone free for a week and she is doing very well. She is continuing her Prozac 5mg once a day and 100mg of gabapentin twice a day. She was in a cone for two months while we figured out her correct medication so that her tail could heal. Now she will just occasionally look at it and sometimes will nip it it gets close to her face but I am able to distract her when it happens. Her medication has really been helping her and she is finally living a quality life again since FHS started getting serious.

Prozac took about 2 months to start working enough for her so that I was able to take her cone off and have her not attack her tail.

Every cat is different but I will say that if you think your cat has FHS, please don’t wait to medicate like I did. There is so much conflicting information about it online and there is debate about what causes it (and of course it could be different in every cat) but for Celeste, it does truly seem to be a seizure disorder with OCD manifestations (self mutilating). I have noticed that her medication has also resolved a number of other strange things she did that I didn’t realize were probably FHS related. She used to meow at nothing and jump up doorframes as if chasing something. Now I believe she was hallucinating as that can also come with FHS. She also used to cry in the litterbox and she doesn’t do that anymore.

Prozac causes some urine retention (this is normal) and she was only taking a huge pee every 48 hours, but I started adding water to her food and that’s gotten her going once a day which is great. I feed exclusively commercial raw with no dry. If your cat will eat watered down food it’s also a great way to keep them hydrated.

I hope this helps if someone else is in my situation and I will keep updating on Celeste’s progress. There needs to be more information and help easily available out there for cats with FHS. It’s not something to ignore and if I could go back I would have started medication sooner. But I am glad that Celeste is finally doing better. There is hope out there with a lot of patience and trial and error.

 

[fionasmom]

Thank you so much for updating. Lots of times new members will come to a thread and ask if it was ever resolved, so this is a big help. You really did the best you could for Celeste and I am so glad that it worked. I completely agree that treating this condition is very important and that having to live with FHS, from inside the cat's mind, has to be so hard and frightening. Please let us know how things progress...hopefully this is behind both of you now.