Chapter four of four
Stop signs, emergencies and reporting a problem
Read this once now, on a calm day, so it feels familiar if you ever need it in a hurry.
About a five-minute read
In this chapter: who to call in an emergency, why there is no official list of signs for these products, why cats need extra care, and how a problem gets reported.
In an emergency
For a possible poisoning, the FDA's own advice is to call your vet, an emergency clinic or an animal poison control center right away.
Two US animal poison lines say they answer around the clock. One is Pet Poison Helpline; the other is ASPCA Animal Poison Control. Each service lists its phone number on its own website. Look it up and save it in your phone today, on a calm day, so it is there if you need it.
Your regular vet clinic can also advise, and can tell you where the nearest emergency clinic is.
Both may charge. As of September 2026, Pet Poison Helpline listed a charge of $89 for each incident, with follow-up consultations included. The ASPCA says a consultation fee may apply and gives no amount.
One of the lines warns owners not to make an animal vomit without advice from a vet or the helpline first.
Why there is no official list of signs
Approved cat medicines come with a label that tells the vet what to check and which signs mean stop. The online peptides have no label like that, so there is no official list of warning signs for them.
What helps instead is plain noticing. If anything about your cat is new or different after a product was given, write down what you saw and when.
- Eating less or refusing food.
- Drinking or peeing more or less than usual.
- Vomiting or loose stools.
- Hiding, low energy or any change in behavior.
The FDA's general advice, if a pet shows side effects, is to stop giving the medicine and call the vet right away.
In the small cat studies of GLP-1 drugs, the family behind the human weight-loss shots, the cats mostly ate less or vomited, and one had a mild dip in blood sugar.
Why cats need extra care with medicines
A cat's liver is poor at clearing certain common drugs, so they build up in a way they would not in a person or a dog.
The FDA's pain relief page, current as of September 2022, says no drug of the ibuprofen type (an NSAID) is approved for long-term use in cats. It warns that repeated doses of one of them can cause kidney failure or death in cats.
The law does not require makers of unapproved animal drugs to tell the FDA about side effects, so trouble can take a while to come to light. That is why "no side effects reported" tells you very little.
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How a problem gets reported
The FDA puts care first: contact the vet and get the cat treated, then report.
The FDA asks for reports of side effects in pets, including from products that never had approval or were mixed by a pharmacy.
With an approved medicine, the route the FDA recommends is a call to the company that makes it, and that company is required to forward the report. For other products, the FDA takes reports on its own form, Form FDA 1932a.
The fillable form works on a computer, not on a phone or tablet. Your vet can help fill it in.
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Keeping your cat's medicines straight
The FDA notes that mix-ups happen at the clinic, at the pharmacy and at home. A stray decimal point can make a written amount look ten times bigger than meant.
The FDA suggests keeping a list of every drug and supplement an animal takes, and storing pet medicines apart from human ones.
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