A question please about Gabapentin

[RustySprings]

My 12 year old cat is due another attempt at the vets for blood tests tomorrow. We've had two aborted attempts so far, mainly due to her going ballistic at the vets.
For the second attempt, I had to give her 0.4ml of drops of liquid gabapentin in her food twice a day for 7 days before taking her again. Unfortunately this did nothing to sedate her and she was still very stressed and angry at the vets.

We have the 3rd attempt tomorrow and they have asked me to up the dosage to 2 ml in her food tonight and 2 ml in the morning before taking her.

I am quite nervous that this seems a very high dose - a big jump from 0.8 a day! and I am worried about how she will be.

Can anyone share their experiences of gabapentin liquid doses and cats with me? Thank you.

It depends on the strength of the formulation. Typical dose is 100mg/cat the evening before and again the morning of the appointment
the lower dose twice daily for a week approach seems odd - it’s more usual to do that when treating pain

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29099247/

Thank you. That's eased my worries a bit. I think the lower dose for 7 days was because they suspect she has onset arthritis - which is what she is going in for blood tests for. They thought she was reacting badly due to pain after the first attempt at taking blood.

I must admit she is getting a bit stiff and not as agile. (They are also going to check for any sign of kidney disease. )

It's the conversion of ML in liquid medicine to Milligrams I find confusing. 2 ML just seemed quite high.

What strength is it?
My cat is on 12.5mg twice a day but that’s in tablet form, sometimes we go up to 25mg and the vet says that’s a low dose.

Looking at the bottle it says:
"Gabapentin Oral 50mg/ML SF (CD 150ml x 5) "

Dose is 2Ml tonight and 2Ml in the morning prior to Vet appointment.

So I am reading on a medicine chart that 1 ml = 50mg of Gabapentin. So 2ml = 100mg. I'm to give her 2ml tonight and 2ml in the morning. I guess it's to ensure she is sedated. ( Still seems a lot though )

This could all be academic as I've just put 2ml of drops in her food, hidden artfully in a blob of tuna in the middle and she's just walked off in disgust!

Yes. And as I mentioned 100mg is the typical dose for this, so sounds right 😊

Thank you @FurAndFeathers .
She's just had a bit of her food and is now chilling on her heated mat. She's looking a bit spaced out. So fingers crossed.

If it helps my dcat has to have a 50mg tablet 1 hour before any vet visits but it's only recently been halved to 50mg as her previous dosage would mean she behaved like a serious crack-head for the rest of the day - she's 16 and tiny, weighs just about 3kg, so the 100mg does sound about right. Good luck

Thanks @iknowimcoming - all useful info! Mine was 3.8 kg at last weigh in . She's not very big either. I have a feeling she won't finish her food tonight as she can be very capricious, but she is already looking a bit whoozy, having had some of it. The next move will be the licky-e-lix on the top. Cats ...<sigh>...

My very boisterous wild 3 yr old Tom has had to go back and forth to the vets a lot ( bladder problems ) he travels really well and sleeps in his cartier out of choice but by god at the vets he is like a Tasmanian devil.
We gad started on 50mls on his 2nd visit with zilch effect

So they asked me to give him 100 mks the eve before and 120 mls in the morning for his 12.30 appointment.
He was woozy but but a bit like a old drunk arguing with a lamp post 😸

Lol I wish I could afford a cartier for him to sleep in .
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