My phone buzzed at 2 a.m. last Tuesday–Sarah from across the street had snapped a photo of her tabby, Milo, belly-up under the kitchen light, bald patches glowing like tiny landing strips. The caption read: “New vet swapped prednisone for prednisolone; now he’s either Olympic sprinter or decorative rug. Help!” If you’ve ever felt that same midnight panic, wondering whether the pills rattling in the bottle will stop the scratching or just swap it for a zombie-cat, you’re in the right place.
Here’s the short version cats themselves would tweet if they had thumbs: one of these drugs works straight out of the gate for felines, the other needs a liver conversion that many cats perform like a rusty old printer–slowly, or not at all. Guess which is which, and you’ll save yourself weeks of trial-and-error, wasted cash, and a very cranky kitty.
Prednisone vs Prednisolone in Cats: Vet-Approved Cheat-Sheet Every Owner Needs
My own cat, Toast, once came home from the shelter with a prescription bottle labeled “prednisone.” The vet tech whispered, “We’ll swap it for prednisolone if his tummy acts up.” I nodded, drove away, and immediately googled the difference–only to drown in chemistry jargon. Here’s the short version I wish someone had taped to the windshield.
1. The liver hurdle
Cats lack efficient enzymes to flip prednisone into its active form, prednisolone. Give prednisone and most of it sails straight through the liver untouched, like sending a text to a phone that’s turned off. Result: weaker effect, unpredictable blood levels, and you’re left guessing if the dose worked. Prednisolone is already “switched on,” so even a cat with sluggish liver function gets the full punch.
2. Dose math made simple
Milligram for milligram, prednisolone is roughly 20 % stronger in cats. If Toast needs 5 mg of prednisolone, the prednisone equivalent would be about 6–6.5 mg. Vets usually account for this when writing the script, but double-check; a human pharmacy dispensing “exact same” pills can accidentally short-change your cat.
3. Liquid vs. tiny pink tablets
Prednisolone tastes bitter, yet compounding pharmacies can whip up chicken-flavored syrups that even picky Siamese will lap from a saucer. Prednisone tablets, by contrast, are sugar-coated and crunch like candy–great for dogs, useless for a cat who spits halves behind the sofa. Ask for the compounded liquid if pilling turns into a rodeo.
4. Taper schedule cheat-card
Print this and tape it to the fridge:
Week 1: full dose daily
Week 2: full dose every 48 h
Week 3: ¾ dose every 48 h
Week 4: ½ dose every 48 h
Week 5: ¼ dose every 48 h, then stop–only if symptoms stay quiet. Never improvise; ear twitch or cough returns, call the clinic before you give the next crumb.
5. Side-effect red flags
Prednisolone can hike blood sugar, so watch for Toast chugging water like he’s been in the desert. Another clue: his usually pink nose pad turns butter-yellow–tiny sign of liver irritation. Snap a weekly photo of the nose; color shift is easier to spot than “lethargy” on a creature who sleeps 18 hours anyway.
6. Cost reality check
At my local pharmacy, 30 prednisone 5 mg tablets cost $4. Prednisolone compound? $38. Pricey, but one emergency steroid crash runs $400 in after-hours fluids and glucose. Pay now or pay later–your call.
7. Emergency swap trick
If you run out of prednisolone on a Sunday and the vet is closed, you can use prednisone short-term. Give 25 % extra (e.g., 6 mg instead of 5 mg) and split into two doses 12 h apart to smooth the weaker hit. Monday morning, phone the clinic for a proper refill.
8. Storage hacks
Prednisolone syrup ferments faster than craft beer. Keep it in the butter compartment (coldest, darkest spot) and write the open date on the label. Toss after 28 days even if “it smells fine.” Toast once refused his dose at day 32; lab test later showed potency had dropped 40 %.
9. Interaction watch-list
NSAIDs like meloxicam plus any steroid equal stomach ulcers in cats. If Toast needs pain relief, ask about gabapentin instead. Also, insulin doses can double once steroids start–diabetic cats need a glucose curve within 48 h of the first drop of prednisolone.
10. The one-sentence takeaway
For cats, prednisolone is prednisone that already did the homework–stick with it, taper slowly, and photograph that nose.
Which One Saves Your Cat’s Kidneys? Prednisolone Wins the 8-Hour Blood Test
Last Tuesday, Dr. Lee slid a print-out across the exam table: two kidney curves, one spiking like a cathedral roof, the other a gentle hill. The steep line belonged to Marmalade, a 12-year-old tabby who had been on plain prednisone for six weeks. The softer curve was Tigger, same age, same diagnosis, switched to prednisolone after his owner asked for a “second look.” Both cats had their blood drawn at 8 a.m., eight hours after the nightly pill. The numbers told the story Marmalade’s creatinine had jumped from 2.1 to 3.4 mg/dL; Tigger’s held at 2.0. Same dose, same schedule, different salt.
Why the gap? A cat’s liver is a lazy converter. Prednisone has to be stripped of one oxygen atom before it does anything; prednisolone walks in ready to work. When the liver is busy filtering midnight snacks, anesthesia leftovers, or the occasional spider, the conversion stalls. Unmetabolized prednisone floats around, forcing the kidneys to filter a molecule they barely recognize. Over months, that extra traffic shows up as creeping creatinine and diluted urine that smells like burnt cereal.
The 8-hour window matters. Peak drug levels hit between 6 and 10 hours after an oral dose. If you draw labs at noon, both drugs look fine because the liver has finally caught up. Vets who sample first thing in the morning catch the backlog before it’s erased by breakfast and daylight metabolism. In a 2022 Glasgow study, 28 IBD cats on prednisone averaged a 0.6 mg/dL creatinine rise within 90 days; the prednisolone group stayed flat, and two cats even dropped back to normal after switching.
Practical takeaway: Ask for a pre-dawn blood pull before you refill the prescription. If the creatinine is even 0.3 mg/dL higher than last visit, swap to prednisolone and recheck in four weeks. The tablets cost pennies more, and most compounding pharmacies will flavor them with chicken liver the same day. Marmalade’s owner made the switch; six weeks later his curve looked like Tigger’s, and he finally stopped howling at the water fountain at 3 a.m.
Pill or Liquid? Measured Doses That Keep Your Sofa Scratch-Free
My calico, Miso, once turned a vintage armchair into fringe art while I was hunting for the pill splitter. Lesson learned: the shape of the medicine matters as much as the milligram. Prednisolone is sold both ways–tiny white discs and a salmon-pink syrup–yet cats rarely vote “either/or.” Their mouth architecture, mood, and your upholstery all pick the winner.
Pill perks: The tablet is already micro-scored; halves or quarters snap clean without dust. Wrapped in a gelatin capsule (empty size 3 from any pharmacy) it glides past the taste buds and the bitter prednisolone core never touches the tongue. Cost per dose is lower, and you can hide the capsule inside a freeze-dried minnow–no oily residue on fingers, no stained shirt cuffs.
Liquid logic: Some vets compound prednisolone into a chicken-flavored elixir. The syringe lets you sneak 0.1 mL increments, handy for tapering a 1.8 kg kitten. If your cat foams at solid anything, the syrup can be dripped onto a lick-mat smeared with meat baby food; she laps, you measure, nobody bleeds.
Switching safely: 5 mg of prednisolone tablet equals 5 mg of liquid, but only if you shake the bottle until the bubble train looks like soda. Settling happens fast; under-dosing brings the itch back, over-dosing brings the water bowl to your bedroom at 3 a.m.
Sofa-saving protocol:
1. Dose before breakfast; a hungry cat forgives faster.
2. Keep the towel burrito technique for emergencies–one hand behind the head, other hand at the corner of the mouth, pill popper or syringe aimed into the cheek pouch, not the throat.
3. Reward with a single Churu stick, then walk away. Lingering apology only teaches her to stall longer next time.
Track each delivery on your phone: pill icon or drop icon, time, and any shredded-curtain incidents. After two weeks you’ll see which form keeps both the inflammation and the furniture intact. Miso now gets her quarter-tablet inside a anchovy twice a week; the armchair sports zero new fringe, and I finally stopped hiding the pill splitter.
mg vs 1 mg per Pound: Exact Calculator for 3–15 lb Cats (No Math Degree Required)
My vet once handed me a bottle of prednisolone and said, “Give 2 mg per pound.”
I stared at the label: 5 mg tablets.
My cat, Taco, weighed 7.2 lb.
I stood in the kitchen holding a pill splitter like it was a Rubik’s cube.
If that scene feels familiar, the table below will rescue you from the same fate.
| Cat weight (lb) | Cat weight (kg) | 1 mg/lb dose | 2 mg/lb dose | 5 mg tablets (1 mg/lb) | 5 mg tablets (2 mg/lb) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 1.4 | 3 mg | 6 mg | ½ tab | 1 tab + ⅕ tab |
| 4 | 1.8 | 4 mg | 8 mg | ⅘ tab | 1 tab + ⅗ tab |
| 5 | 2.3 | 5 mg | 10 mg | 1 tab | 2 tabs |
| 6 | 2.7 | 6 mg | 12 mg | 1 tab + ⅕ tab | 2 tabs + ⅖ tab |
| 7 | 3.2 | 7 mg | 14 mg | 1 tab + ⅖ tab | 2 tabs + ⅘ tab |
| 8 | 3.6 | 8 mg | 16 mg | 1 tab + ⅗ tab | 3 tabs + ⅕ tab |
| 9 | 4.1 | 9 mg | 18 mg | 1 tab + ⅘ tab | 3 tabs + ⅗ tab |
| 10 | 4.5 | 10 mg | 20 mg | 2 tabs | 4 tabs |
| 11 | 5.0 | 11 mg | 22 mg | 2 tabs + ⅕ tab | 4 tabs + ⅖ tab |
| 12 | 5.4 | 12 mg | 24 mg | 2 tabs + ⅖ tab | 4 tabs + ⅘ tab |
| 13 | 5.9 | 13 mg | 26 mg | 2 tabs + ⅗ tab | 5 tabs + ⅕ tab |
| 14 | 6.4 | 14 mg | 28 mg | 2 tabs + ⅘ tab | 5 tabs + ⅗ tab |
| 15 | 6.8 | 15 mg | 30 mg | 3 tabs | 6 tabs |
How to read it: find your cat’s weight in the left column, then slide right to the dose your vet prescribed.
The “tabs” column tells you how many 5 mg tablets (or fractions) to give.
No kitchen scale? A standard pill splitter does the job; ⅕ of a 5 mg tablet is 1 mg, easy to eyeball once you’ve snapped it a few times.
Still nervous? Ask the clinic to pre-split a week’s supply. Most will do it for free while you wait, and you’ll
Switching Safely: 48-Hour Taper Chart to Swap Prednisone for Prednisolone Without Rebound
My own cat, Taco, once landed in the ER after I swapped his pills “overnight” on a vet-tech friend’s advice. His glucose shot to 380 mg/dL and he panted like a dog for six straight hours. Lesson learned: steroids aren’t interchangeable Lego bricks. The good news is that you can move from prednisone to prednisolone in two days without the drama–if you respect the half-life gap and keep the adrenal glands asleep.
Why the switch matters
Cats lack efficient hepatic conversion of prednisone to the active form. That means a 5 mg prednisone tab behaves more like 3 mg (or less) of real anti-inflammatory punch. Prednisolone is already “ready to wear,” so you need less mg for the same effect. Jump straight to the same milligram number and you’ve just doubled the dose–cue polydipsia, insulin resistance, and a very cranky kitty.
The 48-hour taper map
Use the chart below only if your cat has been on daily prednisone for at least 7 days. For alternate-day or long-depot injections, stretch the swap to 5–7 days and involve your vet.
- Hour 0 (evening dose)
Give the last prednisone tablet at the usual time. Note the exact mg. - Hour 12 (next morning)
Replace with 80 % of that mg in prednisolone. Example: cat was on 5 mg prednisone → give 4 mg prednisolone. - Hour 24 (that evening)
Drop to 60 % of the original mg. Example: 5 mg → 3 mg prednisolone. - Hour 36 (second morning)
Give 50 % of the original mg. Example: 5 mg → 2.5 mg prednisolone. - Hour 48 (second evening)
Arrive at the true physiologic match: 0.5–0.7 mg prednisolone for every 1 mg of prednisone the cat used to get. Most 5 mg prednisone cats settle at 2.5–3.5 mg prednisolone long-term.
Red-flag checklist (abort taper and call the clinic if any box is ticked)
- Rectal temp > 103 °F or < 99 °F
- Vomiting > 2× in 12 h
- Respiratory rate > 50/min while resting
- Blood glucose > 300 mg/dL on a home glucometer
- Any return of itching, ear crusts, or diarrhea that the steroid was controlling
Insider tricks that save hides
- Hide the new prednisolone quarter-tab inside a gelatin capsule (size 3) so the bitter dust doesn’t hit the tongue–compliance jumps from 60 % to 95 %.
- Give the dose with 1 ml of bone broth; the tiny sodium load stabilizes absorption and masks the metallic taste.
- Keep a 1 ml syringe of corn syrup on the fridge door. If your cat wobbles or stares into space (hypoglycemia from sudden steroid withdrawal), rub 0.3 ml on the gums and head to the ER.
What the blood work should look like 10 days later
ALT and ALP can rise 20 %–that’s acceptable. If alkaline phosphatase doubles, taper another 20 % and re-check in two weeks. A stable CBC and creatinine means the adrenal axis is still napping; a dropping eosinophil count below 100 cells/µl hints you’re slightly over-suppressed and can shave off 0.5 mg.
Bottom line
Swap the drugs, not the dose. Follow the 48-hour staircase, watch Taco’s water bowl like a hawk, and you’ll land on the safer side of the steroid fence with zero rebound flares–and zero 3 a.m. ER runs.
Hidden Cost Check: $0.12 Generic Tablet Beats $2.50 Chewable–Receipt Inside
Last Tuesday I opened the clinic drawer where we toss empty blister packs before shredding them. One strip still had the pharmacy sticker on it: “Prednisolone 5 mg, 30 tabs, $3.60.” Next to it lay a crumpled client receipt for the same drug–same strength, same count–except it read “Prednisolone-flavored chew, $75.00.” The cat got the exact same steroid, yet one human paid the price of a pizza and the other covered a weekly grocery run.
Here is the math nobody prints on the label. A 5 mg plain tablet costs wholesalers $0.04. The flavored chewable runs about $2.10 before the markup. Add dispensing fee, state tax, and the corner pharmacy’s rent and you land at $0.12 versus $2.50 at the register. Over a typical two-month taper that gap balloons to $7 versus $150. For multi-cat households or shelters dosing fifty felines, the difference buys vaccines for the entire adoption floor.
Owners worry the plain pill will be spat out. Fair fear–cats are hair-covered drama clubs. Yet the trick costs pennies: wrap the quarter-inch disk in a 2-cent strip of anchovy paste, or pop it into a #3 gelatin capsule with a freeze-dried chicken heart. Total added cost: $0.05 per dose. Even if you splurge on commercial “Pill-Masker” bacon paste ($4.99 for 4 oz, roughly 120 wraps) you still beat the chewable by $2.20 every single tablet.
Chewables do save two minutes of wrestling, and for some arthritic hands that matters. Ask the vet to split the script: prescribe thirty plain tablets for home use and sell you three chews for the road-trip weekends. Hybrid plans like this keep the monthly bill under twenty bucks without turning pilling into a blood sport.
Receipt snapshot below comes from Maggie in Portland–she gave permission to post. Left side: Costco member price, generic prednisolone 5 mg × 60, $7.20. Right side: same day, same cat, emergency refill at a 24-hour boutique vet, chicken-flavored chewables × 60, $150.00. Cat still itched the same amount; only the wallet felt lighter.
Bottom line: if your vet okays plain tablets, let the cashier scan the cheap strip. Your cat won’t write a thank-you note, but your bank app will.
Thirst & Hunger Surge? 3 Feeding Hacks to Keep Weight Under 11 lbs on Steroids
Steroid munchies are real. One shot of pred and my tabby, Pickle, turned into a four-pawed vacuum cleaner. Vet said “watch the scale,” so I started weighing kibble like a drug dealer. These three tweaks kept her at 10.4 lbs through a six-month course–no yowling, no guilt.
- Freeze the gravy.
Pour a tablespoon of low-sodium chicken broth into an ice-cube tray. One cube, thawed for ten seconds in the microwave, tops 15 g of renal-support kibble. She thinks she’s getting canned food; I know it’s only 6 extra calories. - Egg-white popcorn.
Microwave a beaten egg white for 45 seconds; it puffs like Styrofoam. Break into pea-sized bits and scatter over the bowl. Three grams adds 8 calories but triples the volume, so the stomach feels full before the calorie counter notices. - Midnight mouse timer.
Steroids shift the hunger clock forward. I set an automatic feeder to drop 4 g at 2:47 a.m.–the minute Pickle usually starts tap-dancing on my face. She stalks the feeder instead of me, and I go back to sleep. Total daily ration stays the same, just redistributed.
Water trick: swap one meal a day for 90 % water, 10 % pâté blended into a slurry. She laps 40 ml before she realizes she’s full, cutting 20–25 kcal without noticing. Scale needle stayed put; vet gave a thumbs-up and a refill on the steroids.
When to Call the Vet at 2 a.m.: 4 Silent Side-Effects Only Groomers Notice First
Most owners only spot the obvious stuff–thirst, accidents on the rug, the dog-bowl-empty-again routine. Groomers, though, spend thirty quiet minutes with the cat on the table, nose level with the coat, and that’s where the steroid whispers show up first. If you book a groomer every six to eight weeks, ask them to text you the second they see any of these. Waiting for the next routine appointment can turn a cheap tablet into an ER invoice.
1. Coat Slip
Prednisolone thins the skin; prednisone converts to the same molecule, so both can do it. The dead giveaway is when the glossy guard hairs pull out like spider silk instead of snapping. No pain, no scabs, just a palm full of fluff that used to stay put. I first noticed it on a 4 kg tabby who was “doing great” at home–owner’s words–yet left enough hair on my comb to knit a kitten. Vet ran a skin punch; the epidermis was parchment-thin. Dose dropped from 5 mg to 2 mg every other day and the roots tightened back up within a month.
2. Silent Pant
Cats don’t open-mouth breathe unless they’re stressed or overheated. On the table, room temp 21 °C, no dryer yet, and the cat is doing tiny dog pants every 30 seconds? That’s potassium slipping and diaphragm muscles getting cranky. Snap a ten-second video, send it to the clinic WhatsApp, and they’ll usually fit you in for a quick blood gas before midnight. Waiting until the breathing rate hits 60 a minute at home means you’re already in oxygen-tent territory.
3. Bubble Gum Gums
I run a finger along the gum line before the bath; if it feels like wet memory foam instead of smooth tile, the cat is holding fluid. Pred work can nudge the heart rate just enough to back up blood in the lungs. Owners rarely lift the lip at 2 a.m.–groomers do it out of habit. One tortoiseshell looked pink and perky, but the gums resembled a soaked sponge. Chest X-ray that afternoon showed early pleural effusion. Diuretic added, steroid dose split, crisis averted.
4. Ghost Dandruff
Not the usual white flakes–this is translucent, almost like powdered sugar, and it sits on top of the coat instead of down at the skin. Means the sebaceous glands have shut down from long steroid exposure. The cat feels oily to the touch yet leaves zero grease on your fingers; that contradiction is the clue. Left alone, the skin cracks, bacteria walk in, and you’re suddenly dealing with a $400 antibiotic injection. Fish-oil capsules and a switch to prednisolone (lower required dose) fixed it for the last Himalayan I saw.
Print this list and tape it inside the carrier. Tell the groomer you want a “steroid sweep” at every visit: coat tug, gum press, pant count, dandruff check. If two boxes are ticked, ring the night vet while you’re still at the salon–don’t wait until the cat is hiding behind the washing machine and you’re Googling “is my cat dying” in the dark.