It actually doesn't matter when cats get a steroid. So if morning works for you, give it then.
Nice to see more, longer stretches of blues.
Thanks
@Wendy&Neko , I am glad to hear from you... I wanted to ask you about budesonide.
I have read different threads on this topic and you had commented on a lot of them.
So between your experience, and your talking to others who had cats on budesonide, I wanted your input.
Toeby seems to be doing well on the steroids...
He had been a barfy cat much of his life, and had to go to the vet for help passing furballs a couple times.
But, the barfing got worse in the last couple years.
A couple vets, upon examining him at different times, had mentioned that his intestines felt "ropey" which might indicate neoplasia (cancer).
In November, the veterinarian of longest tenure at our clinic (40 +/- years) examined him when he had a bad bout of barfing and diarrhea and wrote:
"Ruleouts - neoplasia - bowel, or inflammatory bowel disease. Trial of prednisolone and course of metronidazole for diarrhea"
"If not responding - xrays, ultrasound, possible barium series"
"Note neoplasia of bowel difficult to detect if intraluminal"
We also talked about possible food allergies, and adding pumpkin to his diet and lots of things.
We discussed how prednisolone carried a risk of causing diabetes, but we went ahead, and Toeby did really well on it for a couple months, then he developed diabetes.
So, we switched to the budesonide... I was hoping it might mean I could regulate his BG's and maybe see his way off of insulin.
He it still (touching wood) doing great on budesonide....
He's on 1 mg a day, in either compounded tablets, or compounded chews.
He has only very, very rarely barfed, and I put it down to fur.
So!
My question is, after all that preamble... is budesonide something that normally you do a trial of, then wean off, and see if the bowel is calmer?
Or do they stay on it all their lives?
I think I read your kitty was on budesonide all her life?
Toeby has been on either the pred or the budesonide for 6 months now.
If you could share some of your experience or knowledge, I would greatly appreciate it.
I had read somewhere on the Facebook page that there is a classic cancer-related response to insulin, involving bounces, and I often wonder if that is what I am fighting with Toeby.
Did I read that right? I don't tend to trust a lot of what I read on the FB group.
If he has cancer, as many vets have suggested he might, that would not be a surprise in a 16 year old kitty.
Laura
