From:
Pam Sessoms
Date: 2001-10-30 01:54:00 UTC
Subject: Re: [Ferret-Health-list] coenzyme q10
On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, Celia Clinkinbeard wrote:
>
> I'm thinking about using coenzyme q10 for Cokie's hypertrophic
> cardiomyopathy. <snip> Anyone have any experience with this stuff?
> And I wonder what dose? I'm thinking 1-5 mg, but this is partly a
> guess. (One of the aforementioned cats received 10 mg twice daily...)
I gave CoQ10 to my (now departed) old lady Sunny for *dilated*
cardiomyopathy, so we're talking about different forms of heart disease
here. But anyway, I did some research before putting her on it, and the
dose we came up with was 10 mg/kg twice a day. Sounds like a lot, but she
did very well... She weighed almost exactly 1 kg, and the capsules were
30 mg, so it was pretty easy to eyeball the dose and guestimate one-third
of the capsule. I was giving her really watery Bob's Chicken Gravy to
help keep her hydrated and to hide all of her various meds and
supplements, so I just threw it in there and it went down the hatch with
no struggles.
Also, there weren't reports of "toxicity" at high doses in humans, although there were anecdotal reports of cats getting upset stomaches on CoQ10. I also recall one vet who suggested one 30 mg capsule divided three times a day for cats, but I can't put my hands on that reference now to save my life; it may have been something my vet found on a VIN discussion board... There is a great free database at http://www.pubmed.gov/ that indexes medical literature, including some veterinary journals - some of the article abstracts include doses...
Did the CoQ10 help? No idea... She did nearly double her maximum
expected survival time AND get her ejection fraction from downright
horrible at diagnosis up to low-normal during therapy, so that's good. A
number of board-certified veterinary cardiologists were really surprised
at how well she did. But she was on such a mish-mash of prescription meds
and supplements that it's impossible to say exactly what caused
what.
Anyway, as usual I'm rattling on. Good luck, I recall from previous posts
that you and your wonderful vets have already worked miracles with Cokie.
She is lucky to have such a devoted mom.
Best wishes,
-Pam S.