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My daughter has two female cats about 2 yrs old from same litter--she got them from someone where her friend rides horses--big group of barn cats.
She got them as kitties--has taken care of them.
About 7 mo ago one of the girls had a seizure when they were home--scared them. Took her to vet afterwards and saw the vet's sub...he said that for cats more than a yr old and under 5 it is very, very difficult to determine cause of seizures and/or treat them with anything but anti-spasmodic meds like adults.
The cat has seemed fine after the initial seizure--no problems eating/eliminating/playing--good tempered/loving. The only difference my daughter said is that this cat will now sleep with the people vs sister who still does not...
Yesterday she had her second seizure--was on bed sleeping w/my daughter who woke up when it started...said it lasted about a min and after the cat came conscious, her back legs still twitched for less than 30 seconds...
when she seemed to have stopped,my daughter put her on floor and cat ran to her food bowl and ate....again no side effects--no trouble walking/playing--
My daughter stayed home from work to make sure there were no other seizures that day and took cat to vet--this time she did see her normal vet who said there is heart condition that can cause lack of oxygen which could make cat act like it was having seizure but is really lack of oxygen...
she could do xray test for that but recommended my daughter take this cat into neorologist vet in Sarasota FL--my daughter lives just south of there.
That vet could run more tests--wider spectrum type of blood tests, MRI/CTscan, other tests to try to determine the cause of the seizure...
my daughter did quite bit of reading after the first time and what she found echoed what the first vet (the sub) said--that it is very difficult to determine causes of seizures and that treatment w/o specific cause is usually to give drugs---
her vet basically made her feel guilty for not trying to find out why this cat has had two seizures in 7 mo...
my daughter is a sweet person who does feel guilty if she is not doing "the right thing" to make people she loves happy--she loves her cat...
Intellectually she might know how unlikely it is that a definitive, treatable cause could be diagnosed but emotionally she is now afraid she does not "love" her cat enough...
I just wondered if anyone else had experience with cats having seizures?
Apparently kittens under a yr who have them usually have some spinal cord/brain infection/problem--
and older cats usually have kidney failure causing them...
this cat appears to have no other physical problem--and her sister from the same litter has no problems at all--including no seizures...
firstly anything and NOTHING can cause seizures
secondly most vets refuse to medicate any animal who has seizures unless they are frequent...and by frequent i mean more than once a week.
honestly given the time span betwen the 2 seizures i wouldnt be too worried, given that imediatly after the seizure the cat whent straight to the food bowl id put MONEY that it was a hypoglycemic episode (blood sugar drop can easily cause seizures!)
all a neruologist will do is run a butt load of tests and then tell her because the seizures dont come frequently enough there not willing to treat with medication...
see the problem with anti-seizure meds is they tend to CAUSE more problems than they solve...
tell her not to stress, the vet has no right to make her feel like shes a bad kitty momma...
seizures are tough, they are incredibly unpredictable and without detailed notes itll be impossible to diagnose a seizure disorder.
if there was somethign going on in the brain, the seizures 1: would be much more frequent and 2: the kitty would be displaying other signs, cerebral problems generally come with symptoms that resemble a little bit of un-coordination, wobbly setls, clumsy, general difficulty figuring things out...essentially kitty would seem "slow" compared to her sister.
my suggestion for this situation would be have the vet do a full blood panel, if theres somethign ging on auto immuno or infection, or even the likes of kidney issues, itll show up in the pannel (and wont be as expensive as goign to a specialist)
then deepdnign on the results of the pannle treat accordingly...infection for example would be atibiotics...
if the blood results show nothing i wouldnt act further at this point, instead keep an eye on kitty, and watch for "odd" symptoms...if kitty has a seizure she needs to write down when, what time, duration and as much information about the 1/2 hour before and after the seizure as possible...
seizures can be triggered by so many things, scent, sound, light pattern, not eating frequently enough ect...
if she can keep track of as much information as possible if this happens again she might notice triggers, things that are the same every single time...
she may also see warning signs...kitty may seem wobbly or spacey before a seizure ect...
if the seizures start to become more frequent (more than 4 times a year is when most vets start to realy look into seizures) or if they happen multiple times in one week, then id start looking into possibly seeing a neurologist/looking into it further.
IThe same thing happened with my cat. He's epileptic. After seeing this I searched on line videos of cats with seizures - you'll find them on youtube - and I reached the conclusion it's epilepsy. I took him to the vet but he said, since the seizures are rare he can't do anytihing about them. There's no remedy for this. he only said if the seizures become like few per week he'd put him on antispastics.
Does your cat have a bit of foam after the seizures? Oh, I was so socked when i first saw him... It is terrifying.
alot of people assume seizures = epilepsy but thats NOT nessicarily the case...seizures can be caused by many things.
true epilepsy is also usually much more frequent, im not saying its not epilepsy, im just saying that without scans and alot more testing you shouldnt assume just because the cat has active seizures that its actually epilepsy.
There is a BOATLOAD of non-medical possibilities that could be causing the infrequent seizures in her cat.
Have her Google to find out what may be in her home that could trigger seizures (cleaners, plants, food, etc.) and eliminate any of those possibilities.
The lack of oxygen due to a heart problem does sound plausible given that there have only been two in 7 months. If the vet thinks that though, why the referral to a neurologist, I would think a veterinary heart specialist would be more appropriate.
I would pursue that first, to rule it out.
Now, I wonder if it's possible this cat has gotten into something toxic on the two occasions of these seizures?
Did either of these vets do blood work? and why on earth not if they didn't. If no blood work has been done, I'd be looking for another vet practice, frankly.
I have a cat with a seizure disorder. He is 12 years old and has been on phenobarbital for 9 years. His diagnosis is Idiopathic Partial Seizure Disorder. He saw a neurologist and had many tests. Idiopathic means they don't know what causes them.
His condition was very severe, when the seizures started, when he was three years old, they came at least every hour or even more frequently, and lasted from one to five minutes, except when he was sleeping.
When he was younger he went to the vet twice a year for well visits (all my cats do) with blood work once a year to check organ function and phenobarbital levels.
A year ago he began to have some liver damage from the long term use of phenobarbital, so he takes Denosyl and we reduced his dose slightly (very scary time and he did have three break through seizures in the early months after reducing the dose) during that time he was getting check ups and blood work every three months but now that his numbers are back in normal range and stabilized, he goes every four months for check up and blood work.
Please keep us posted on your daughter's beloved girlie.
these are inside cats--they have screened lanai around the pool they can go in but never on real dirt--
she keeps everything closed up--so I don't think the cat got into a cleaner and because there is her sister there it seems that if one cat got into it then the other likely would as well...and she is fine...
right now they are just going to watch her =-= not going to the neurologist--
she talked to another vet--don't know who--but felt better about being reasonable--
her vet did not mention the broad spectrum blood test just the heart xray but the cats get checkups every 6 mo and have been tested for things like feline lukemia and I would think any kidney abnormalities would show up in the ones they have had before now
my take is that if there is something wrong with the brain synapses it could be from birth/genetic
(who knows--they could be kittens from a brother/sister mating since there were just a wad of barn cats at this place and I don't think the owner neutered the males or females--just let nature take its course)
or there could have been some damage to the kitten after birth before our daughter got her--
her sister is larger and more adventurous--more physical so there are differences between them...
but right now she is not having any serious side effects after the seizures--no trouble walking/eating/personality and does not seem to be in any sort of pain--
so they are just going to watch her
I too wondered about her food--if she might have special sensitivity to it--but the sister eats the same thing
will ask her about changing the food--but two seizures in 7 mo does not seem to indicate a severa allergy reaction
but appreciate the feed back
anyone here in the Sarasota FL area--
do you have a vet recommendation for someone south towards Venice/Nokomis area
I think she might consider changing her vet although she has been really happy there in past
A feline leukemia test would not show anything but positive or negative for feline leukemia (and FIV/heartworm, if doing the SNAP test).
A superchem is the type of blood work that should be done. This will show all organ function, will show electrolyte numbers, and everything else. Yes, this is probably an idiopathic condition (if not heart related) but in my opinion blood word should be (should have been) done, if only to have a baseline for what is normal for her. Blood work tells many many things.
If this were my situation I would pursue the possible heart condition before deciding to let it be.
By the way, excessive appetite after a seizure (you said she ran right to her food dish after the episode) is very common. Excessive affectionate behavior may be noticed, too.
I'm glad she's doing okay now, depending on what your sister is feeding them, perhaps a diet change might be beneficial. A lot of the grocery story brand foods are full of artificial things, and sodium nitrites (a suspected cause of seizures in geriatric cats, I know this kitty is young but thought it worth mentioning) and sodium nitrates. Bad stuff.
My janie, who passed away a couple of years ago at age 15 - had seizures occasionally (think she had 3 or 4 in her life). The vet never could figure out what was causing them, and she seemed none the worse for wear after one (other than sometimes looking confused)
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