Prozac for cats

[Sunshineshimmy]

Hi everyone
I have posted a few times about urinary issues my cat has had (cystitis,blockage, crystals etc) and unfortunately the saga continues

the vet believes the recurrent cystitis he suffers with is stress related although there is no obvious trigger, he quite literally lives like a king!
so the next step is to try him on prozac with the view that if this helps his anxiety it will then in turn help the urinary issues.
has anyone had experiences with a cat on prozac, did it help, anything I should be aware of?

My cat suffered from hyperesthesia and the vet suggested Xanax for her because the epiplepsy medication didn’t ease her fits.
She has had various ailments over the years (including mega colon which was awful for her to go through) and I just think she’s a cat that seems to suffer more than other cats and I think she is prone to suffer from anxiety unfortunately.

She is still on Xanax but we have reduced her dosage to just half a tablet a day. The first day she took her medication she was very full-on and it was strange to see (she’s usually quite stand offish and doesn’t show too much affection) so to have her throwing herself at me in happiness was bizarre but she settled down. For me the main thing is that she is no longer suffering from the behaviour brought on by the hyperesthesia so I am grateful for her medication for that.

I cannot think of any side effects although my girl is still pretty grumpy most of the time so the Xanax is not a miracle drug but like I said it cured the ailment that she was suffering from but it didn’t cure anything else.

The process is quite straight forward to get the medication - my vet writes out a prescription and the pharmacy provides me with the tablets (I must say it confuses the assistants in the chemist when they receive the vet prescription and call out my cat’s name as the patient 😁). A tip from me, if you go down that route, is to make sure you keep on top of the quantity of tablets available. You can’t run out because it will be difficult for the cat to adjust. I always order weeks in advance in case there are supply problems. I had a worry during Covid when the pharmacist said he’d run out. Fortunately I was able to change pharmacies and the new pharmacist is amazing but the other pharmacist had no stock at all but I was able to ride through it because I was always ahead of ordering.

I admit that the medication saved my cat’s life at the time because her fits were pretty bad and had repercussions that affected the whole family.