Can anyone help??? My cat has a pollen allergy, occurs every year around this time where she scratches herself to pieces. The vet suggested giving her Piriton and wrote down the dose for me. I have been doing this and gave her the last dose on Friday. Yesterday she was really sick and wasn't able to keep anything in her for longer than 10 minutes. She started drinking any water she could get hold of but was unable to keep this down either. She was still purring and asking for food, but just couldn't take it. This continued until around 1am today. She has eaten today, I have cooked her some chicken and this seems to be ok, so hopefully things are returning to normal. Has anyone heard of Piriton causing this sort of problem and is there anything else anyone can recommend I try for her?

I've given piriton to my dogs and haven't had any problem with it. Maybe she's just got a bug as I wouldn't have thought the piriton from Friday would be causing problems now. I would phone the vet and have a word to see what he suggests.

How often are you dosing and how much? There isn't any reason I know why it should cause this reaction so I'm wondering if you could try tailoring the amount and frequency to her needs. It isn't like an antibiotic so it's OK to reduce the dose or try giving it less frequently. It would be trial and error, probably worth it though to get it right for your cat if she will need a maintenance dose each summer.

Piriton is 'off label' use in animals so there are no figures for dosing by weight. I also know from personal experience that while some humans can take it and keep functioning others are knocked out by it for hours. I know because it's one of very few products which work when I get bad hay fever and I have to plan to sleep for hours if I need to take it