- Joined
- Oct 13, 2023
- Messages
- 129
Good morning: Many of you have become familiar with my cat Bella, 13 yrs and 9 mos old who has kidney issues. I've had some chats with you re: Bella's anxiety in going to the vet, and how in the past I would give her gabapentin to calm her down for the 1 hour ride one way to the vet I used to use for a few decades. Now, I will be driving Bella closer to home (about a 20 minute ride with traffic) on Jan 23 for a physical exam and a blood draw to check her levels since the last one was done, sedated, at the vet further away, which was 8/4/23. As Bella's blood results had shown SDMA level creeping up last year, the last blood draw, under sedation, was very hard for her body to bounce back from once home. I have received feedback from some of the vets on HA previously, and will try to NOT sedate her and have a new team at the new vet try to manually draw her blood. I always used to stay in the room with Bella at my previous vet, so she could see me while they attempted to draw her blood, etc. But on Halloween, when I took her sister Maya (normal healthy cat) to get blood drawn at the local vet where I will be taking Bella in a few weeks, they took Maya out of the room, and within 10 mins was back with my kitty, all done! Not only was it better on me mentally and emotionally, maybe it was better for Maya to not be around me either (my stressed energy of her having issues)! Anyways, Bella is my more challenging kitty all around. So my question is, knowing how the drugs will be harder for her system as it is to filter out, is it worth giving her gabapentin before the road trip to take the edge off, though the trip will be shorter? I don't want to sedate her this time but I know from being an eye witness Bella has delicate veins that are hard to get blood from, even when she didn't have kidney issues. Alternately, I can ask if they can prescribe Bonquat/Lyrica ahead of time (if that is available yet, Dr. Jeff has posted about this new drug). Or, I can try the natural route with reiki before hand, EFT, and maybe some flower essences. Thoughts?
