Today is the first phenobarbital-free day of Banana's life since May 5th. It has been an extremely long and stressful road for this entire household. I tapered more slowly than the neurologist even recommended, stretching out another two weeks based on recommendations from the epileptic cat owners' forum I belong to. The overall trend over the last couple of weeks especially has been positive for sure, although he does still have some minor itchy issues that bother him from time to time.
Personality and mobility wise, though, he is much, much better. His coordination and balance are completely normal, which was never the case when he was on a therapeutic dose of phenobarb.
He's also curious and active again, playing with Papaya and running to the windows to look at birds.
So now we just have to wait and see if the itchiness goes away completely over the next couple of weeks. The phenobarb will stay in his system for at least that long yet. If he's still itching after that, we can look into other things - food allergy, maybe? - but I am 100% confident we've done the right thing getting him off phenobarbital.
I feel like I have my cat back, finally. For now, I guess - I am still holding my breath a little bit. At least his issues are infrequent and tolerable for the time being. And hopefully by mid-August they'll be gone completely! If not, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
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