Luna has been on cerenia tablets for travel sickness in the car ever since she 14 weeks old - she would get severe sickness just from a 2 minute car journey and has not really grown out of it, though she can manage longer journeys now. The dosage for a dog that weighs from 4-8kg should be 2 16mg tablets. When she was around this weight we used to give her half of 1 tablet because of how drowsy they made her. She is now 30kg and should be on 2 160mg tablets but she still only takes 1 16mg tablet. I have found that this works for her, there is no drowsiness or lethargy but it prevents the motion sickness. Our vet surgery has a new vet and changed her dosage without consulting me first. Thankfully I noticed before I paid, but I got into an argument with her regarding the correct dosage for Luna. Without even reading Luna's notes or asking me why she was on the lowest dosage, she was saying that Luna doesn't have travel sickness she is just stressed and needs Nutracalm (a calming supplement) which will calm her down and stop the motion sickness (she'd just said Luna doesn't have motion sickness!!). Luna doesn't really stressed from travelling. She will get into the car and will lie down quietly without any issue. She is possibly nervous about travelling but she willingly gets into and out of the car without too much encouragement - this has taken a lot of training to get this far. Another main issue is cost - 8 16mg tablets just cost me £35. The vet hadn't even calculated the correct dosage to begin with and instead tried to give me 4 60mg tablets which would have cost over £60! I dread to think what the 160mg tablets would have cost! If the lowest dosage works fine, why should I pay more to over-medicate my dog? Should I give this Nutracalm product a try? Does anyone else have issues with travel sickness and can you recommend a good product to prevent it? Should I continue to give 16mg of Cerenia despite being the wrong dosage for her current weight? I don't like medicating her but the times she has been sick are when she's not had a tablet and she then becomes reluctant to travel.
I think I would be tempted to try the Nutricalm. It does sound like a very small dose she is getting. https://www.drugs.com/pro/cerenia.html Dogs DO seem to "grow out" of travel sickness, or more likely become more tolerant. Using anti-dizzy anti-vomit tablets in the long term isn't good as the body won't naturally adapt if it is artificially sedated - although that may be a bit of a strong word. Maybe worth a try.
