Can you do the math since my cat and I can’t?

April 5, 2018 2:27 PM

I’m not actually terrible at math but I’m struggling to understand cat drug dosages and would love help with 1. doing the math and 2. understanding the math.

10-lb old lady cat was prescribed gabapentin for litter box complaints. Seemed like she was in pain but exam and x-ray show no tummy issues. Might just be a superficial butt problem. That’s as gross as this will get, I promise.

So it’s 80 mg/ml in strength and she’s getting .5 ml twice a day. I’m trying to figure out what that means - it reads to me like she’s gettin 40mg in each dose or a total of 80 mg per day. Is that right?

My concern is that she’s pretty sedated on this and I know it’s used for sedation as well as pain management, but I’m struggling to interpret recommended dosages online because the units aren’t identical.

I want to get a handle of this on my own before contacting the vet because it’s a new vet and I’ve already asked one dumb question.

Here’s my lady, for reference.

posted by OrangeVelour to Pets & Animals (6 answers total)

So it’s 80 mg/ml in strength and she’s getting .5 ml twice a day. I’m trying to figure out what that means - it reads to me like she’s gettin 40mg in each dose or a total of 80 mg per day. Is that right?

Yes, that's correct.
posted by peacheater at 2:41 PM on April 5, 2018

Just call the vet and tell them that she's pretty sedated on this dose, do they think you should drop it down? It's not a dumb question - getting the pain management vs. sedation balance is tricky. They might recommend that you stay at this dose for a week and then ramp down, or cut it immediately, or switch to something else - you can't guess without asking.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:41 PM on April 5, 2018 [8 favorites]

Did the medicine come with any paperwork or package insert inside? There may be some dosage information given out in terms of weight (example: "give 20 mg of drug per kilogram daily").

Stuff like that is usually in metric terms, so 10 lbs of kitty divided by 2.2 lbs/kg gets you roughly 4.5 kilograms.

But definitely call the vet to see if you should adjust.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:45 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

We also have a cat on gabapentin (arthritis, not butt stuff). We found she was heavily drowsy for first few days, but that quickly dropped off. A dosage for a 12-pound cat per day can range between 36mg a day to 120mg depending on the practioner's dosing preferences, per the dosage found on petplace.com (1.5 to 5mg per pound of cat every 12 hours).

For pre-exam dosing to make the cat less stressed out, significantly higher doses were used.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 3:19 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Your math is correct, but maybe the dosage is high. Calling your vet to describe the situation and get their advice would be a totally reasonable move.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:04 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the help. Vet is closed on Thursdays (?!) so I’ll reach out tomorrow, but you’ve helped me understand that yes, I’ve heard of fractions before, and while it might be a lot of drug it’s not outside normal ranges.
posted by OrangeVelour at 5:30 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]