My 11.5 year old Joshua just died. His long-standing spraying habit was behavioral, we were told, after many hundreds of dollars of tests. We were fairly certain it was a dominance battle with his brother and a younger female. Getting rid of the female didn't help. Last ditch effort was to put him in a specially lined room for 2 months and rub Buspar in his ears to relieve his anxiety. We unwittingly gave him half the prescribed dose, and he was still really laid back (and stopped spraying). A very happy loving time for us all, surprisingly. Lots of attention and loving that he didn't try to avoid. About week 3, his left pupil "blew" wide and was unresponsive to light. No other neuro symptoms. Labs were normal, but eyeball pressure was elevated slightly. Uvuitis was ruled out, so he was started on Trusopt for glaucoma. A week later he was staggering, lethargic, and rapidly progressed to seizures, and then really decreased responsiveness and high temperatures. His electrolyes were only a little abnormal. He arrested one minute after a gush of blood came from his nose. I was told that it was a tumor rupturing in his brain. I was an ICU nurse, and the last day really did look like increasing intercranial pressure. Buspar has been safely and sucessfully used for cats before. The ER doc questioned whether valium for the seizures could have made him lethargic for so many hours. She looked blank when I mentioned that I had been told that Maine Coons were sensitive to some anesthetics and other drugs. The eye vets told me flatly that the Trusopt could not have been involved. The circular made it sound pretty toxic. There is no way to know for sure: he was cremated. But I would like to find out if those drugs could have caused/contributed to his death. Not for vengence, but, if reasonable, to educate the very kind vetinarians about differences in MC response to medications. Does anyone know? Are there any articles or books or online info I could check? A weird kind of coping, but it would help me to know.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2000

Answers

HC,

Your first few sentences sounded like a possible fix for an aggression problem we have. So having mentally put our Circe in Joshua's place, I read on and felt shock and sympathy at your loss. Here's something that may be useful for your medical search: a book called Researching Online for Dummies (I hate those titles), nonetheless provides a CD and instructions for some in-depth research links that most of us would never otherwise find. Best wishes.

Linda

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2000