Epileptic cat?

cptrayes

cptrayes

Well-Known Member
Joined
4 March 2008
Messages
14,748
Visit site
Sorry not horse but I hope you can help. My cat appears to have developed epilepsy. Has anyone any experience of an epileptic cat? What caused it, at what age, and what happened to the cat?
 
My last cat had epilepsy. He was on drugs, and lived to be 13. It was horrible to see ( as you know), but as soon as the fit was over he would just have a shake and get on like nothing had happened.
 
there are drugs to control this. how old is your cat? have you had him tested for diabetes? i would take him to your vet asap and have full health check and bloods! if an old age thing it might be a quality versus quantity of life. a very difficult choice but a fitting animal is most distressing to witness even if vet tells you it is unaware. i hope you can fix this one!
 
Yes, one of my cats kittens had it, sadly he was pts young, long time ago, think he was under 3yrs old, kindest thing to do, he was the runt of the litter, strangely his mum was pts just last week, she was almost 20, i loved her dearly, lived out her last days with my sister
 
Yes I had one.

Came on when she was about 7/8 never medicated and lived to the ripe old age of 16.

They did get a bit more violent over time - but once you were used to the howl when it started and knew she would come out of it it wasn't really a problem - apart from if she was asleep on the bed when it happened (mine used to pee) but that was solved by having a spare duvet
grin.gif


Only thing that got me was why did it always happen around 4am!
 
I had a gorgeous ginger cat with epilepsy. We rehomed him from a center after he had been hit by a car and broken a leg. I think he must have hit his head as well.
He started fitting after a couple of months at our house, you could always tell he was about to have a fit as his pupils would dilate. He would then run flat out in what ever direction he was facing and fit on the ground when he hit something. He would wee all the way!

We controled it for 18 months with 3 pills a day , but every now and again he would go missing around the neighbourhood and my partner (now wife) would wonder the streets in her dressing gown, knocking on doors trying to find him. One day he went and there was no sign of him for two months. We had given him up for dead when the RSPCA rang to say they had found him. (He was chipped). He was in an awful state, just a skeleton really. As we fed him up he didn't have any fits but once he as back to strength he started fitting again.
Eventually we decided that he was a disaster waiting to happen and we had him put down. All very sad.
 
Our old cat (she is 20) started having fits about 3 years ago. The vet wasn't sure it was epilepsy, said it could be the start of a brain tumour but given her age we chose not to have lots of tests done. She is absolutely fine, still lives a normal life, only change has been that we don;t let her out of the front door, she goes out in to the back garden and doesn't jump any more so stays close to home. When she fits, she wees everywhere and convulses for about 1 minute, then she will shake herself off and get up as though nothing has happened. We have decided to let her carry on until her quality of life becomes compromised which at the moment it definitely isn't, she can still give the dogs a run for their money when chicken is being served
grin.gif
 
Thanks everyone. He is going for test at the vet tomorrow but he's a farm cat and uninsured so we can't afford a huge level of treatment. He's five and he started it last week. We thought the first one was something he had eaten but he's done it again (same place same time, odd isn't it?) He lies on his side "running" around in a pool of his own saliva. He gets very frightened by it and it takes him ten or fifteen minutes to stop looking scared.

He's the bestest cat you could ever wish for - he's so vocal we can hold conversations with him and he loves a cuddle at 8 every evening. The last cat I would ever have wished to lose early. Still, fingers crossed, some of your stories give me hope, thanks.
 
ooooooooo sorry here this - one of my cats is epileptic, but she didn't develop it we got her as rescue cat and came with condition.
We went to vets and they want to put her on drugs and mess around, we sad no................. 16 years later we still have a very healthy cat who doesn't no often have fit, but very managable and is a very health happy cat.
We only know she's had fit as she becomes very clingly for couple of days. If we see her having fit we pull her away from anything at could hurt her. And after fit lots and lots of TLC.
Prastices may have moved on.... but something i do think vets are so keen to give drugs.......... For our girl it has been proved to be right course as she's out lived her daughter who didn't have condition.
good luck-ps it's the black and white puss cat in my siggy
 
My cat (also a rescue - history unknown) started having seisures about 2 years ago (about a year after we took her in). The vet's initial thought was epilepsy (as was ours) and we agreed to put her onto Phenobarbitone (sp?) as a trial. That definitely did stop the seizures - but we decided to go for bloods as well - and am really glad we did, because it turned out that it wasn't epilepsy at all - but diabetes.

Hattie Cattie stayed with the vets for a day or so in order for them to monitor her and get the insulin levels right (she came off the Phenobarbitone immediately) and has been on daily insulin injections 2.5mg ever since, with a carefully monitored diet. That has been very successful and she hasn't had a fit since (we could always tell beforehand when she'd had a fit, because even though she would snap out if the seizure very quickly, she would be un-coordinated and groggy for the best part of 24 hours afterwards).

Yes, I know that vet's bills can be very expensive - but I for one am very glad that we investigated further and went ahead with the treatment, because Hattie Cattie now has an extremely good quality of life (and even presents herself in the morning for her daily injection - but then again, I think that's got a lot to do with the fact that her breakfast is served straight away afterwards!).
 
Well that's very positive, thankyou for your cats' stories. He's having the full range of blood tests, including a special one for toxoplasmosis because he lives surrounded by sheep and he's the only one we've had whose mother was a house cat and couldn't have passed him any immunity to sheep poo bugs. We will know if any of those are positive tomorrow and if not we have to assume a brain tumour. Meanwhile he's got a great big patch of hair missing off his neck where they took the blood from which he is very offended about - how uncool!
cool.gif
 
He has tested positive for toxoplasmosis. Thank goodness for that! It's treatable with a 4 week !!! course of antibiotics.

Thanks for all your support
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top