Seizure in cats

11 years ago

In early August my 10 month old (at the time) Ragdoll had a seizure. He was laying down on a chair, then suddenly started running around very quickly, then dropped to one side and had full body convulsions. He bit the side of his mouth so there was a bit of blood, and urinated during the episode, it lasted about a minute and then he came about. We took him to the vet straight away, he had to stay over night and blood tests we're done.

The next morning he came back home and we recieved the results. There was nothing wrong with his resultst and physical exam came back all clean too. So he wasnt put on any medication.

Then roughly two months later, on 2nd of October, he had a second seizure. Again he was laying on the floor when suddenly he ran off very fast again, I had a very bad feeling so asked someone who lives with me to call the vet straight away, he again after running around fell on his side and had full body convulsions, with some saliva and urination again, this time the seizure only lasted about 30 seconds, once he came about we again took him to the vet.

His temperature was high and they kept him over night, he had Nuroclav administrated, blood tests were taken which again all came back clean, so we this time ordered a toxicology tests to be ran on his blood, and they came back clean too.

The vet allowed our kittie to come back home but for 3 days he had to take nuroclav in the morning and evenings.

the vet said its most likely primary epilepsy, and episodes need to be more frequent before we should start medication...

Only now I'm in pieces sometimes, I'm so worried, I keep checking on our kittie, and if im not at home I call home to see how he is going.

So many different sites out there for this subject but it is all so confusing.

Can my kittie have 2 seizures and never have one again? Will putting him on medication stop seizures completely? How often is too often for seizures to happen? What can I do to minimize the risk? I need so many answeres, or just hear from people who have had similar if not the same issue. We love our boy, and its so painfull to see him like that, and we're so worried, just praying it wont happen again.

The doctors said he is a very healthy cat, and what we feed him is great and he is well looked after, he does not go outside and we have no plants in the house.

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Comments (4)

jomuir
11 years ago
No experience with seizures, but I'm sorry to read about your Ragdoll's problems. I hope he can be treated for this. I'd be beside myself too if it were my cat.
lzrddr
11 years ago
epilepsy is a very common disease in both dogs and cats and I have treated hundreds of these patients, most with excellent results (not all, though). Usually for cats phenobarb works well as a single drug treatment, twice a day and though some cats are a bit 'stoned' for the first week or so, most return to totally normal behavior and activity. The dose usually started is a low end dose and then increased if the patient continues to have 'too frequent' seizures... what does that mean? It means that all epilepsy cases are assumed to still have a seizure now and then (many thankfully never have another seizure while on meds), but there is an 'acceptable' seizure frequency (usually one mild one every 2-3 months is considered exceptable, though it would of course be nice if no patients ever had another seizure again).

Most seizures do not adversely affect cats or dogs unless they are extremely violent or last for a long time (meaning over a few minutes). Long seizures can result in high body temperature, sometimes so high (over 107F) that the brain will start to be come damaged. . This is why you should always rush your pet in if they are seizing continuously. But we rarely ask our clients to bring in their pets if the seizure was a short one and if they seem OK afterwards.. there is little we are going to do about it afterwards and blood work is almost always normal. Another exception to this non-intervention is if your pet is having 'cluster seizures; (a lot in a row- several in a short period or even in a day).. then we recommend hospitalizing and monitoring closely so we can give injectable medications instead of oral ones to helps stop the cluster.

So to answer your questions, putting your cat on phenobarb MAY, and with luck, WILL prevent all future seizures, but there is certainly no guarantee. Seizures are 'too often' if they are violent (then even one is too often) or more frequent than one every 1-2 months. There is nothing else you can do to minimize the risk of seizures other than medication. You can minimize the risk of secondary problems during a seizure by making sure your pet cannot fall into a swimming pool or down a long flight of stairs by keeping your pet away from such areas at all times (hard to do keep cats from stairs, though). Seizures can look painful, but from what most people that have epilepsy say, it is usually not painful.. .just scary and eventually annoying (when they are finaliy used to having them)... and disorienting.

I have no idea what nuroclav is... must be either a misspelling or some brand name of another drug (maybe a brand name for midazolam or valium I have not heard of?).
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Years ago my two year old cat had a grand mal seizure. Bloods tests were run and everything was normal. Three months later, almost to the day, he had another one. He ended up having a seizure approximately every three months. Each seizure was different - some were mild, some were not. My vet told me that he now had a pattern and would have seizures the rest of his life. She also told me that unless he had two seizures within a one month period she wasn't going to put him on meds. I am happy to say that he had seizures every three months for a period of about three or four years and then they stopped. He lived a long and happy life. I know how scared I was for my kitty when he had his first seizure. The thing that you have to remember is that your kitty is not in any pain no matter how bad the seizure looks or how loud he yowls. Your kitty does not know that he had a seizure. The only thing you have to do is to make sure he doesn't hurt himself while having the seizure (ie - pull him away from broken glass) and most important - remain calm and act like nothing has happened afterward. Don't hover or hold him - just go about your business and keep an eye on him. Sometimes the recovery is quick (sometimes my kitty would get up and go right to the food bowl) and sometimes they are disoriented and exhausted for quite a while. Believe me - the seizures are much harder on you that they are for your kitty!
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I'm sorry this happened and witnessing a full tonic-clonic (Grand Mal) seizure for the first time is very, very scary. The first thing you need to know is that Cedar was unconscious throughout and not feeling any pain. Cedar will need to rest for a while and may seem a bit woozy for a few days, but the seizure itself was almost certainly more upsetting for you than for her. You did the right thing by rushing her to the emergency vet because a 'continuous' seizure (lasting more than 4-5 minutes) or a'cluster' seizures (dog comes round and then has another seizure withing a few minutes or hours) are real emergencies. The dog can overheat from the seizure activity and die fairly quickly or the repeated and violent seizures can cause brain damage. Late onset seizures do indicate that something serious may be going on so you will need to take her to a vet ASAP and get a full workup. It could be a brain tumor, but also head trauma, getting into something toxic, or low thyroid or heart worm disease. Your vet needs to rule out other things before you go to the 'worst case' scenario of a brain tumor. He/she might also recommend just putting Cedar on anti-seizure meds rather than going the CT scan and spinal tap route to rule out a brain tumor at this stage. It really depends on overall health. Phenobarbital is usually the first med recommended by vets for seizures, with Potassium Bromide a close second. Both are quite affordable. There are several other meds out there but those tend to be more expensive. One thing your vet will ask you to do is keep a log of all seizures. You should start this now, noting down everything you think happened in the last couple of days - both behaviorally and physically, how long the seizure lasted and what Cedar's recovery time is. Also note down any behavioral changes as they might indicate possible brain damage. I have had two dogs who developed late onset seizures (at 10 and 11) in the past. They lived for three or four years quite happily and with good quality of life on seizure meds and may have had very slow growing brain tumors. We decided in consultation with our vet just to treat the symptoms not go for expensive diagnostics. They had developed other serious medical conditions when we reluctantly decided to let them go for their own sakes. The seizures were well controlled for quite a few years. On the other hand, I have a younger dog with epilepsy right now. He was only 5 at onset, and is hyper-sensitive to many different drugs. As his seizures were hard to control with the usual meds, we decided to go ahead with the CT scan and spinal tap to rule out a possible brain tumor. It was $$$ but worth it for our peace of mind. He is also on a new to us med (Keppra) because he needed really high doses of Phenobarbital and we were afraid of liver damage - the pros and cons of various anti-seizure meds is another thing to discuss with your vet. I've included a link for a website with a lot more useful information on dogs with seizures below. I hope all this helps and wish you and Cedar the best. Remember, you know Cedar best, and will make the best decisions for her quality of life because you love her. Here is a link that might be useful: canine epilepsy guardian angels
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Two in a month is not 'rarely' by a long shot. Most of the time medication is recommended if 1) seizures are more often than every 2 months OR 2) seizures are so severe that the pet had a hard time recovering, OR 3) seizures lasted more than a few minutes. Even under the best of circumstances, in a younger dog like yours, seizures that are 'mild' or infrequent are often not treated because even with treatment, most epileptic dogs (and cats to some degree) continue to have seizures (though far less often.. sometimes never again). Our goal is to keep pets from having seizures less than once every 2 months... so if they are already having them less than that, we hesitate treatment as treatment is NOT benign. However blood work is ALWAYS recommended (and actually so are radiographs and ultrasounds- looking for an errant tumor that could somehow be involved). Hypothyroidism can be associated with an increased seizure frequency, but actual death from hypothyroidism is pretty rare (not seen a single case in 28 years as a vet). Hypothyroidism is associated with other illness problems as well (heart disease, joint disease, dermatologic problems, weight problems etc.), so correcting the lack of thyroid hormone is indeed recommended. If two seizures in a month is still considered 'rare' by your vet, I would agree, seek a second opinion. The longer frequent seizures go untreated, sometimes the harder they are to get control of.
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It could have been. From what I know (which could be wrong) epilepsy usually shows up by or around 2 years old. Although I am wondering - based on my own experience with my dog - is it possible your dog tooted and got more than he bargained for?? Which would explain him trying not to move and sitting quickly and acting funky? Our bigger dog is pretty gassy, and on the rare occasion it ends up being more than that. And he acts pretty off when it happens. He tucks the tail too, he'll try to sit, then stand, then sit and stand, and his ears go back and he looks panicked. And he doesn't move normally until whatever was half way out, comes all the way out. He moves slowly and awkwardly. And he gets that sad, dopey look he gets when he's in trouble, maybe because he knows he's not supposed to poop in the house. I would definitely have him checked out just to be safe, but if he comes back clean, he could've just had an oops.
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Xeneminie
Original Author
11 years ago
Hello, thank you for your replies.

Today our kitty had another seizure, he didnt do a mad dash and he didnt urinate either today. He just foamed at the mouth.

We of course took our baby boy into the vets and they told us that we can start using medication, BUT, there are still few things we havent explored to eliminate anything else, so we have decided to go and get brain scans done and liver test's to see if thats causing them.

Vet said the only thing she is worried about, that if it is the liver, then giving him epilepsy medication could be fatal.

We're heading 500km south to Perth at the end of November for further testing.

Today's seizure seemed to be a lot more calm, and we knew exactly what to do this time. Just very scary.
jomuir
11 years ago
thanks for the update x. I'm glad the vet warned you of the med risk if he has liver problems. But it is worrying, we had a dog who would pass out from syncope related to heart murmur, and the episodes were disturbing. Good luck, hoping for a good ending for you & your ragdoll.

Seizure in cats

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jomuir

lzrddr

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Seizure in cats

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jomuir

lzrddr

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