|
It sounds to me like the benefits outweigh the reaction. I'm
so happy she is feeling better!
My cat, Doobie, has reactions to any vaccines, and so they
give him a dose of something like "dexamethizone" (not sure of the exact
spelling) with any immunizations, or he will run a faver, and his feet get hot
and itchy, and he turns bright pink and generally miserable. I only update his
rabies vaccine every 3 years now though (and he does not get the other "cat"
vaccines).
Jenn ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ginger got her second dose of Immuno-regulin today. She is now
running all over, jumping, playing, and trying (rather unsuccessfully) to eat a
little (don't get too excited-- I doubt the amount she ate on her own would fill
up a thimble). She is meowing for me and trying to knock the door down
separating her room from the rest of the house. In other words, except for
the very serious fact that she is not eating normally, she seems great.
However, she had a very scary reaction to the Immuno-regulin for the first
hour or so after getting it. I think she had it the first time too, on
Friday, but we were in the car then so I don't think I knew the extent of it. It
seems to give her severe chills, so she shakes, and makes her temperature go way
up for a short time. I took her temp at 104.7 and then 106.1 while
this happened. I freaked out and called the woman from the shelter where I
volunteer and Ginger came from, who came over with her own thermometer and
temped her at 105.8. I gave her fluids and, per a vet who works with the
shelter, one baby aspirin. Within 30 minutes or so her temp was down to
104.8 (still high) and she was purring and playing a little. Within
another 30 minutes she was running around, interested in food and nibbling a
little, jumping onto the very high bed in that room, and getting pinker than she
has been for days. When I thought back, I realized that after she got the
first shot at the emergency room, while I was driving home she crawled onto my
lap and was shivering and I called the emergency room to ask if this could just
be an effect of the moderate fever they had temped her at, and they said yes.
But she probably had a major temp spike then too.
I looked in the literature on I-R and it says that under 10% of cats get
side effects which can include a minor increase in temperature (I do not think
105.8 is minor) and chills and sluggishness. I guess she gets that
reaction. Terry, from the shelter, looked it up in a book she has on meds for
cats and dogs and saw that the dosages range from .25 to .5 ml, and I had given
her .5 ml because that is what the article on the felineleukemia.org website
recommends. I do not know if I will give it to her again or not, but Terry
said if I do I should give the lower dosage, and I think I would give it with a
baby aspirin. Right when it happened I said I would never give her the
meds again, but she is so incredibly spunky now that I am not sure. I
actually just had to stop typing and go take her out of a planter on a shelf
that she had climbed into, and now she is at the door meowing for me to go back
and play with her! Her next dosage would be on Thursday, and she has an
ultrasound on Thursday if she is still not eating, so I would wait and see what
the ultrasound says. If god-forbid she has cancer, then the I-R is probably not
the answer anyway.
Terry could not believe she is not eating, because she looks so
normal. Her nose is still congested, but not very much by the sound of it.
Her not eating is a mystery. It made sense before the dental surgery, and
right afterwards and while her URI was so bad, but now it does not make any
sense, unless she still can not smell or taste much because she is still
somewhat congested. I hope that is all it is.
Anyway, I just wanted to convey this experience with Immuno-Regulin so that
you will know if you ever decide to try it that there can be temporary side
effects that can be scary. Terry at the shelter uses it frequently and says she
has never seen anything like Ginger's reaction to it, but she also said that it
passed so quickly that, with 150 cats at the shelter, she is not sure she would
notice if they had a brief spell of chills or a brief temp spike, since she was
not totally listless or anything when it happened.
Michelle |
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