How long can my cat safely take cortisone for a chronic condition?

Given her age, steroid side effects from long term use tend to become less of a risk if the benefits are clearly improving her quality of life. Depending on the nature of the growth, low level chemotherapy medications may provide an opportunity to halt growth or even reduce the mass but this would require assessment by a specialist

Long acting cortisone shots wear off after 2-3 months, which is why you are seeing a return of Funnyface's itching. Steroids can be used long term, but blood and urine tests are required every six months with quarterly exams. I would speak to your vet about possible long term use of cortisone in Funnyface.

I do know your cat medical history as well as what he is suffering from, snorting could be caused by more than one condition and i have no way to know what condition it is. for this reason i cannot give you an answer to your question, but you should definitely point this question to your vet.

I do not recommend giving any pets any human medications without specific instructions from your vet. Steroids have to be given carefully in order to obtain the correct therapeutic effect and they must be weaned off it when finishing a course. This is a discussion best handled by your veterinarian.

You have a very valid question. Here is the problem, your kitty does not have a diagnosis for why the cell counts were low. This makes it difficult to know how to taper meds like pred nor how long to provide treatment. Has your kitty been tested for feline leukemia/FIV? Was there any additonal testing done other than a CBC? It really would be important for you to discuss your concerns with your family vet who should be open to a discussion about a med that can have long term side effects. We typically do slowly taper drugs like pred for several reasons and your vet will be able to tell you why he or she picked that particular tapering schedule. I hope this helps and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!

It would help to know what medical condition she is taking the steroid for - if she has a life-threatening auto-immune disease, for example, then I would definitely not want to skip any doses since this could cause a relapse of her disease. But if she is taking the steroid for allergies or some other condition that is not as serious, then it would probably not cause any harm if she misses a dose or two - you might see some recurrence of her symptoms, but this would not seriously jeopardize her health. It would also help to know specifically what steroid she was taking (prednisolone, dexamethasone, etc) since different medications stay in the system longer than others. If you want to post again with more details, we can try to give a more specific answer.

Whether a long acting steroid or daily oral steroids are better will depend on whether one works better than the other for your kitty's condition. This is something that will have to be tried out. The good thing about short acting budesonide is that it can be stopped anytime if needed. The long acting steroid can not be stopped from working until its activity is over. Depending on the tyoe of long acting steroid this can be up to three months. Trust your vet to do the right thing and prescribe the proper treatment for your cat. If you have problems with pilling your cat there are ways to compound the medication into either a transdermal medicine or flavored chews (tuna, sardine, etc) which can be given like a treat.