Nicki
Moderator
On a "normal" night, TedBear has his Gabapentin at about 10.30pm and then goes to bed in the dog cage next to my bed with Jack and Kyla.
They usually sleep through until the alarm at 6.30am for his next dose {he's on 100mg 3 times daily}
Sometimes he is a bit restless, asks to come out of the cage and then just lies on the floor near the window for anything from a few seconds to about 1/2 hr, then wants to go back into the cage with the others again - I think he gets hot sometimes, although the bedroom is quite cool and we usually ahve the window open.
Very occasionally he needs to go out for a wee...but unusual these days.
He's had a few disturbed nights, and I'd mentioned it to the vet on Friday, who said it was ok to put him up to 200mg at night if necessary.
Well I really didn't want to put him up this high, as I feel it doesn't leave us anything for when he gets worse - other than steroids.
I did talk to the pharmacist yesterday about maybe getting some of the capsules split into 50mg doses, but she said that it's quite diffcult and very hard to get accurate doses, so he might be getting 25mg one night and 75 the next...
I have previously asked about the liquid form {thinking that would be useful as a top up} , but have been told that this is very irritant to the gut linings, so not recommended.
Last night was just awful I gave him his normal dose, and put them to bed with their biscuit, but TedBear twice asked to come out for a little while, then went into Rupert's cage {which is left set up and open but he doesn't use it very often preferring to sleep with us LOL} and rucked up all the bedding, then was just wandering around.
I lifted him up on to the bed with us, and he did settle for a while, but was then wandering about again.I put him back in the cage, but he was still quite restless...
I didn't get too much sleep as he didn't settle for more than about 3/4 hour until about 5am...
I know night time is always the worst time, and weather changes really seem to affect him - but strangely it went from very wet to dry overnight, and this doesn't usually bother him as much as the other way.
He seems ok this morning, and I'm going to ring my vet tomorrow.
I guess we have 3 options:
Go up to 200mg of Gabapentin at night
Stop at 100mg and - with the vets agreement - give him a low dose aspirin too {75mg ones}
Stop at 100 mg and - again with the vets agreement - start him on steroids again - maybe just a very low dose at bedtime.
I'm not keen on doing any of these really, so just wondered if anyone had any other ideas?
I already use magnet therapy and homoeopathy, he has remedies made up from his conventional drugs to help reduce the side effects and I tried giving the Prednisolone {Steroid} remedy last night but it wasn't enough on its own.
I'm wondering now whether I should have given him some rescue remedy, or lavender oil or the DAP diffsuer spray?
Sorry this is a bit disjointed, I'm a bit tired
They usually sleep through until the alarm at 6.30am for his next dose {he's on 100mg 3 times daily}
Sometimes he is a bit restless, asks to come out of the cage and then just lies on the floor near the window for anything from a few seconds to about 1/2 hr, then wants to go back into the cage with the others again - I think he gets hot sometimes, although the bedroom is quite cool and we usually ahve the window open.
Very occasionally he needs to go out for a wee...but unusual these days.
He's had a few disturbed nights, and I'd mentioned it to the vet on Friday, who said it was ok to put him up to 200mg at night if necessary.
Well I really didn't want to put him up this high, as I feel it doesn't leave us anything for when he gets worse - other than steroids.
I did talk to the pharmacist yesterday about maybe getting some of the capsules split into 50mg doses, but she said that it's quite diffcult and very hard to get accurate doses, so he might be getting 25mg one night and 75 the next...
I have previously asked about the liquid form {thinking that would be useful as a top up} , but have been told that this is very irritant to the gut linings, so not recommended.
Last night was just awful I gave him his normal dose, and put them to bed with their biscuit, but TedBear twice asked to come out for a little while, then went into Rupert's cage {which is left set up and open but he doesn't use it very often preferring to sleep with us LOL} and rucked up all the bedding, then was just wandering around.
I lifted him up on to the bed with us, and he did settle for a while, but was then wandering about again.I put him back in the cage, but he was still quite restless...
I didn't get too much sleep as he didn't settle for more than about 3/4 hour until about 5am...
I know night time is always the worst time, and weather changes really seem to affect him - but strangely it went from very wet to dry overnight, and this doesn't usually bother him as much as the other way.
He seems ok this morning, and I'm going to ring my vet tomorrow.
I guess we have 3 options:
Go up to 200mg of Gabapentin at night
Stop at 100mg and - with the vets agreement - give him a low dose aspirin too {75mg ones}
Stop at 100 mg and - again with the vets agreement - start him on steroids again - maybe just a very low dose at bedtime.
I'm not keen on doing any of these really, so just wondered if anyone had any other ideas?
I already use magnet therapy and homoeopathy, he has remedies made up from his conventional drugs to help reduce the side effects and I tried giving the Prednisolone {Steroid} remedy last night but it wasn't enough on its own.
I'm wondering now whether I should have given him some rescue remedy, or lavender oil or the DAP diffsuer spray?
Sorry this is a bit disjointed, I'm a bit tired