Depends on the  antibiotic in question as well  as the dosage. And
the cat, of course.

I know for  a fact that 2.5  ml of cephalexin given  three times a
day,  after a  few days,  caused a  certain 10-pound  cat to  lose
her  appetite and  eventually  start vomiting  less  than an  hour
after  a dosage. Cut  back,  and  her appetite  came  back with  a
vengeance...only to go away again as  we ramped the dosage back up
to what it took to clear out her lungs.

It seemed to help if I spent an awful lot of time distracting her,
before and afterwards, with lots and  lots and lots of playing and
petting and what-not. If  nothing else, it helped  her forgive me,
even  though  she  really  hated the  medicine. It  meant  that  a
``simple'' two-minute procedure  took at least ten  times as long,
often longer...but what choice did we have?

And  it  did wonders  to  clear  out  the bacterial  infection  in
her  lungs, too! It's  just that...well,  it was  an opportunistic
infection....

Anyway, neither  amoxicillin nor enroflaxin upset  her stomach nor
her appetite, at least not  noticeably. They also didn't knock out
the pneumonia, though they /did/ help at first. Or, at least, they
sure seemed to.

I'm  sure different  cats  have different  reactions to  different
drugs, but an upset stomach isn't  any more surprising in a cat on
antibiotics than in a person on antibiotics.

What I  had to  start doing  with Joanie  was to  syringe-feed her
a/d. She didn't  care much for that,  either, but she only  put up
token  resistance  to  it,  too. And, believe  me,  she  knew  the
difference! She  could be  asleep in  the other  room while  I was
making dinner. If  I even picked  up the bottle of  antibiotics to
reach  behind  for something  else,  she'd  vanish underneath  the
bed. On the  other hand, she  could be sitting  on a chair  in the
kitchen,  I'd get  the  a/d  out of  the  refrigerator, stuff  the
syringe full while  she watched, and she'd only get  off the chair
to head in the other direction when I started to approach her.

All-too-soon after we finally got the pneumonia almost all cleared
up, she had another asthmatic attack that we finally recognized as
such. The  prednisone  injection  brought her  breathing  back  to
normal  reasonably quickly,  but it  took lasix  to clear  out her
lungs...she probably had  some heart failure from  the beating her
lungs had taken by this point.

She was  doing really  well for  several days,  when she  caught a
cold.  (Classic feline herpes, a textbook case.) She even did well
enough through that; her appetite vanished, as one would expect in
a cat  who can't smell  her food, but she  did just fine  with the
syringe feeding, even put on a few ounces.

And then,  a few  Fridays ago,  she had  another asthma  attack, a
couple  weeks before  the  prednisone injection  should have  worn
off. The  attack wasn't  as severe  as  the previous  two, but  it
really, really  wiped her out...and  she didn't really  respond to
medication. I'd open up the oxygen  cage to pet her. She'd perk up
a bit, but  not much and not for long. When  her breathing started
to get worse, I'd close the cage  and just sit in front until they
kicked me out. Did that a lot that weekend....

We thought  the various  drugs (steriods,  oral and  inhaled, some
injected  antibiotics...I  don't  remember what  all)  might  have
actually started to do some good by that Monday afternoon. She had
been  off oxygen  since the  morning  and, though  she was  rather
weak,  her  breathing  was  not-horrible  and  she  wasn't  overly
depressed. And it was the decision day, too...Dr. Hummel was ready
to let Joanie come home, provided she showed signs of improvement,
though she  didn't think we  had much  more than a  month left. If
not...we had both agreed on Sunday  that Monday would still be her
last day at  the hospital. We had crossed the  line from treatment
to  torture sometime  that weekend,  and neither  she nor  I could
countenance continuing that without cause.

I  spent...oh, I  don't know...a  couple hours? More? Less?...with
Joanie while  the doctor finished up  surgery on a dog  and saw to
some other patients. Joanie  put on such an  amazing act...she was
obviously tired, but seemed most ready and eager to come home with
me. She demanded a  near non-stop face massage, and  climbed in my
lap to  see around  the edge  of the cage. She  even wanted  to go
exploring, too, which wasn't so much her thing.

And  then...the  asthmatic  breathing  kicked back  in,  and  even
lifting her head was hard work....

Ah, my sweetheart....

b&

Thanks for asking.  :)

I took her back to her vet on Friday. I've been leaving her normal
food (dry) for her to eat, and then trying to tempt her with various
kinds of moist food in the evenings. She licks the surface of the
food, getting all the liquid I guess, but won't eat it, and she's
still barely nibbling her dry food.  She *is* drinking her water, and
is not lethargic (or what passes for lethargic for her, who's never
been all that active to begin with). She still gives me grief for not
going to bed when she thinks I should go to bed. If it weren't for the
not eating, I'd think she was fine (she lost nearly 1/2 pound over the
last week)

The vet drew blood for tests, and did another physical exam of her.
Pending the results of the blood test (I'm to call about that on
Monday), I'm just to keep an eye on her over the weekend to see if
things pick up now that she's finished the antibiotic she was on all
week.

Could be anything, really, including just old age.

Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha

============
http://www.jhedge.com

It's been 3 days since she finished her antibiotics, and Natasha is
still not eating.

I just spoke to her vet, and her most recent blood test (taken Friday)
came back normal. Even her white cell counts are back to normal. Even
her behaviour continues to be fairly normal (except for the eating
part)

Tonight I'm taking her by the vet to try something we probably should
have tried a while back - a shot of good old vitamin B, kickstarter of
appetites.

If *that* doesn't work, I don't know what I'll do.

Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha