Weaning off of Pred - a Treatment from Long Ago

[lilspaz68]

I am finally organizing all my vet bills over the years, the ones that the Halfie boys didn't pull into their cage and shred of course :cheeky:

And I found a couple of bills for Loki, when I was first new to rat vets.

I shall tell you the story and then you guys can help me figure out what happened.

Loki was an older girl from Petsmart

I came home and found her immobile and tilted quite suddenly. I rushed her to the exotics vet a 10 min walk from me and they told me she had had a stroke.

She was prescribed bactrim twice daily for 10 days and oral pred for 10 days twice a day.
She went for a followup 10 days later and I was told to keep her on the bactrim for 2 more days and wean Loki off the pred by giving her the same dose once a day for 7 days, then the same dose every 2nd day.

As soon as I weaned her off the Pred, she started having horrible seizures and had to be pts...

Now I know these vets overcharge, don't know enough and are ONLY interested in the people for will pay the $600 or so for them to do a lot of unnecessary tests. High Park Animal Hospital for anyone in the know. :wink2:

Could the way she was weaned off have contributed to her death?

 

[BranwenR]

I wouldn't think it was the prednisone, because she was weaned off it(2x/day to 1x/day to every other day if I read correctly). The bad stuff happens when it's stopped all of a sudden. Incidentally, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with stacks of vet bills for long ago rats(which I really am planning on getting into a spreadsheet) :giggle:

 

[lilspaz68]

I wouldn't think it was the prednisone, because she was weaned off it(2x/day to 1x/day to every other day if I read correctly). The bad stuff happens when it's stopped all of a sudden. Incidentally, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with stacks of vet bills for long ago rats(which I really am planning on getting into a spreadsheet) :giggle:

I daren't put it into a spreadsheet, because then's there the SUM option and I really don't want to KNOW how much I have spent since late 2005. :shock: :cheeky:

 

[jorats]

I agree... pred is supposed to be weaned off not stop cold turkey. All I can think is perhaps she had a PT and the pred was keeping it at bay and finally the weaning allowed it to grow to a point where it was too much for her.