Kitten seizures

[lovemutts]

My daughter discovered our latest kitten Roxy in a feral cat population while at camp and brought her home with my permission. Roxy was very tiny and comparably smaller than her littermates. When my daughter brought her home, I had Roxy wormed and she received her distemper shot. The vet estimated Roxy's age to be about 6 weeks (first week of December). I noticed that when Roxy was newly with us that she had very quick seizures...eye twiches, and drooling. Less than a minute in duration. The seizures were clustered, occurring 4 times in two days. Then nothing for a month. Roxy ate and grew through out December, tripling her size, yet still a small kitten. The first week of Jan. Roxy had three grand mal seizures lasting less than 2 minutes each, within 4 days. Blood work was neg for feline leukemia, FIP, diabetes. In fact her blood work was normal in all areas. After that there were no more seizures for another month. However two days ago Roxy began to exhibit the behaviors of a female in heat which my vet and I found odd since she's not of the typical age, and we wondered if she is older than she looks. Then last night, Roxy was asleep and then began to seize. After 20 minutes of non stop seizing I took her to the emergency vet and they administered valium which stopped the seizures, and ran more blood work. She stayed over night and went back to my vet this AM for a look. Once again, all of her blood work is normal. A more in depth look at liver enzymes show that that is normal as well. At this point my vet wants to classify her as having idiopathic epilepsy since there seems to be no obvious underlying cause that can be discerned via blood work or physical examination. I did have the option for admitting her to a special hospital for a neuro work up with an MRI, but I just don't have the 3K it will cost. Has anyone else had a kitten with epilepsy that could offer some advice. Thanks.

[yola]

How frightening for you, and poor Roxy - can't be nice for her. I don't have any experience at all of seizures or neurological problems with cats.

I hope you and your vet can get to the bottom of what's causing her problems. Please let us know how you gt on.

[angieh]

I am sorry not to be able to offer any experience/advice. You and your vet seem to have done everything possible for poor Roxy. Is her quality of life when she is not having seizures generally good?

[Shelley123]

So sorry to hear abour Roxy's seizure. I have no experience with Cats having seizures but did have a Dog who suffered with them. His were caused by something being wrong with his liver.
Seizures are awful to watch but try to remember that the animal is unaware of whats happening. It helped us to keep a diary of Benjis seizures, we were able to see a pattern,also try to note if there is a trigger. They occured every 3 weeks at first but with the vets help we managed to get them under better control with a bigger gap in between.
It helped us to have a kit because Benji opened his bladder and bowels during a seizure. We kept a towel, sponge and the valium together.
If it is epilepsy then hopefuly it should be able to be controlled, fingers crossed for you.
We were given rectal valium to use at home to help minimise the effects of the seizures.

[Kay]

So sorry to hear about Roxy. I have no experience of epilepsy in cats but as an epileptic myself I can sympathise. While it is correct that you are not aware of the fit when you do come round it is very frightening. You don't know where you are, who the people around you are, voices sound so distant and you can't remember anything that happened prior to the fit. That is hard enough for a person to cope with but for an animal it must be far worse.

If treatment for epilepsy doesn't work and the frequency and severity of the seizures continues to increase then maybe you should consider her quality of life.

I do hope your vet can control this but I believe it is difficult in cats. It took three different medications before mine was controlled!!!