Panacur (fenbendazole) dosage for lungworm

[susank521]

After reading an article last week about lungworm and heartworm and the specific damage they can do to the lungs I asked the vet to take another look at Hollywood's radiographs with a view to a parasite infection. The vet agreed that lungworm could be a possibility and it would do no harm to treat for it. 

The vet has prescribed Panacur, 1.5ml for 14 days. Hollywood weighs about 7 lbs. 

I can not find anything definitive on the web about dosing for lungworm. Anyone have any experience with Panacur for lungworm and the dosage? Fourteen days just seems like a very long treatment course.

 

[ldg]

Lungworm is stubborn. It is a common problem in our feral cat population because of the slugs where we live. 14 days is absolutely the common dose, and I would recommend having a fecal done to check for it a week after you've finished the course. I'm not sure why your vet just doesn't look at a stool sample under a scope before treating for it, it's an easy enough parasite to see and identify. :dk:

It can do a lot of damage. Our Flowerbelle was so infested with lungworm when rescued, she was literally drowning. The vet said she had maybe three days left to live without treatment. She also had a very bad herpes infection, to which she lost most of her hearing and one of her eyes. She is now 7.25 pounds and 11 years old (rescued as a baby in 2003), and she suffers from high blood pressure and asthma, due to scarring of her lungs and arteries in her lungs from the severe lungworm infection when rescued.

The heartworm is the one that is difficult to nail down. Are you treating with Revolution as well?

 

[susank521]

Thank you LDG for your reply. I don't know why the vet didn't suggest a fecal exam, except that they do try to hold costs down for me and, just as in this case, it is often up to me to research and suggest possible diagnoses and treatments. I do question almost everything they prescribe or recommend, but with good reason. When I asked the vet to reevaluate the xrays she did mention a number of things it could be, along with a number of tests to rule them out, but suggested we start with the Panacur and Revolution. She also wanted to do a FIV/FeLV test, but I really don't see the point in that. 

Hollywood is due for her next flea treatment in 3 days, so I'll begin Revolution then. 

Two of the other cats from the same rescue situation (Sophie and Pookie) had occasional and  moderate "labored breathing sounds" until they were about 1-1/2 years old. I didn't notice the sound going away, I just noticed one day that they no longer had it. Conversely, Hollywood's has gotten worse over the years and is now almost constant. In fact, I feel like it is daily getting worse. The steroids have no obvious effect, but I continue them just in case there is some swelling.

All of that, along with having recently read about heartworm and how it is believed that a cat's immune system typically responds to the heartworm larvae made me wonder if that's what her issue is, but there is no cough.

And the lungworm... is it likely she would be the only one out of all of those evac cats to have been infected? Or is it possible that the other cats' immune systems were able to conquer lungworm as it can heartworm?

Any thoughts or suggestions are much appreciated. 

 

[ldg]

Tough questions. The bottom line is that immune system health has everything to do with how well a cat manages parasites of basically any kind. It's most likely the ferals all ingest slugs, but it is only one of them that ever exhibits breathing problems from time-to-time, and on several of those occasions, it has been lungworm. He isn't one of the FIV+ kitties in the colony, but he does seem to have a weaker immune system, as I have had to take him in to treat abscesses from time-to-time, and on the rare occasion the other ferals get them (that I see them), most are able to clear them without treatment. They all must have tapeworm - but I never see evidence of it, other than at times in this same cat. Some of the ferals I can treat with either with pills or topically, some I can't. But I do prefer to let their bodies do the work if they can. So .... there's really no way to know if they were all exposed, or if just the one ate something like slugs that could have caused a lungworm infection.

FYI, the pred not helping the breathing problem doesn't necessarily mean it isn't asthma-related. Our cat Flowerbelle exhibited very strange symptoms, that took a year and heaps of diagnostics - that still did not answer the question, "what is the problem?" In fact, it was someone on FB that saw one of my posts and asked a few questions that actually led to her diagnosis of asthma.... which was supposedly one of the first things we ruled out with a pred trial of one or two weeks.

And as it turns out, many cats do not respond to pred when they have asthma. Quite a few people chimed in to say pred didn't help their cat, but a different steroid did. Some use dexamethasone, some use depomedrol. And I know from personal experience that the steroids have different enough mechanisms of action to make that kind of difference. Using depo vs pred in our cat Tuxedo was definitely, literally, the difference between life and death when he had an autoimmune disease that caused anemia.

FYI, I control Flowerbelle's asthma not with steroids at all, but with 90mg a day of Doctor's Best standardized Curcumin C3 complex. It comes in 500mg capsules, and I just measure out the correct dose. She has a heart murmur and high blood pressure (as I mentioned before), so steroids are technically contra-indicated for her. I researched alternatives, had my vet look up the dose in literature (not a lot on it in cats, but she found something). There is a lot of research on it in humans, mostly for arthritis (and it is also helping hers). But it is a powerful anti-inflammatory with antioxidant properties.

 

[susank521]

@LDG  I can't tell you how much I appreciate and value your knowledge and experience! I try to research all of their health issues but I usually end up just feeling confused and overwhelmed. 

Hollywood had her final Panacur dosage last night. It may be the weather (usual high humidity, but less rain) these last two weeks, but I honestly believe that I could tell a difference in her breathing within 4 days of starting the Panacur treatment. Could it have helped her that quickly? She now has frequent periods of quiet breathing and, since I don't hear her, I have to do a double-take to make sure it's her I'm seeing. 

I read on another thread, http://www.thecatsite.com/t/278778/...ith-giving-tumeric-to-their-ailing-fur-babies  , where you split the curcumin dosage into three applications. Is it necessary to split it, or could the full dosage be administered in one feeding?

 

[ldg]

You can probably administer it in one feeding (the curcumin). It is important you use a standardized curcumin supplement that has something in it to increase the bioavailability (like peperine or phosphatidylcholine) - because turmeric has horrible bioavailability. But if once a day you don't seem improvement, try AM and PM. :nod:

And yes, the panacur CAN work that quickly. Thank goodness it does, because when rescued, Flowerbelle was literally drowning in lung worm. The vet said she had maybe 3 or 4 days to live. So it kills off the adult quickly - which the cat then expels (somehow. ???? ). The rest of it is just to account for killing of those hatching.

 

[susank521]

@LDG  I am tapering Hollywood off of the pred and assumed that I would need to wait until she was free of that (months from now) before starting her on the Doctor's Best standardized Curcumin C3.

It finally dawned on me that that may not be true!!! 

 

Do I need to wait?

 

[ldg]

I'm not sure I understand the question? Is she still on the pred? If she's been tapered off of it, I see no reason not to continue with an anti-inflammatory regimen. The pred clears the system in 36 hours.

 

[susank521]

Sorry I wasn't clear. I am tapering her off of the pred. We're at 1/2 tablet every 5 days which we'll do for 2 weeks, then I was told to go to a 6-day spread between doses for 2 weeks. I don't know where it will go from there, I'll have to call the vet again. I was wondering if you thought it would be ok to administer the daily curcumin while she's being weaned off of the pred?

 

[ldg]

WOW that's a long taper! 1/2 a pred every 5 days?

Yeah.... I wouldn't have any qualms about starting the curcumin now.

 

[susank521]

Thanks again @LDG  We're going to give the cucurmin a try. The poor little girl was having an awful day yesterday. The worst she's been since before the panacur.

I couldn't find any mini measuring spoons with 1/64, 1/32, etc. I could only find smidgen, pinch, dash, etc. So, just as you did with the 1/64, I'll see how many pinches there are in 500mg and go from there.

This project is going to call for the heavy-duty, high-number readers (ie. eye-glasses for those of advanced years)!