Tiger Has Another Epileptic Seizure

It’s been 9 days since the last episode. Tiger has been on Neurobion (B1, B6 and B12), Fish Oil, CoQ10 and Vetri DMG.  I was very hopeful that he would not have another attack, but it happened at 8.12am this morning.

He was sitting in Pole’s condo platform when suddenly, I heard a thud. Tiger had fallen down (luckily it’s a soft landing onto cardboard and the cage floor is rather springy too) and was seizuring.

The seizure lasted about 5 seconds in all. It was too fast for me to take a video (the vet had wanted to see a video). Tabs and Bunny were so concerned they came to help and I could see the look of helplessness on their little faces as well. They looked at Tiger and then at me.  They were asking for help for their friend.

It was very devastating and traumatic for me to witness this and be unable to do anything for those 5 seconds or so. The only consolation is that I was here, so that I know it happened. I have to keep a record of all these episodes and if it happened when I was at work or not in the room, I would have missed it and the records would not be accurate (this would affect our decisions and the treatment plan).

Tiger has lost weight too, he was only 5kg nine weeks ago. But he used to be obese, so losing some weight is good for him (but what is the reason for his weight loss?).

He has been eating very well, so appetite is not a problem. His behaviour has also been normal except that he absolutely hates the ear drops (Ilium Ear Drops). The reason we administered the ear drops is to eliminate ear mites as the cause of his scratching (which then leads to his seizures). I dutifully followed the dosage and administered the ear drops twice a day, but Tiger fears the ear drops so much that he would run and hide in the tunnel whenever he saw me with the bottle.

Tiger is very easy to pill so it came as a surprise that he would object to the ear drops so badly. I continued the ear drops for 7 days and thereafter stopped it. Now, on the 9th day, he threw another fit.

So, this morning I went to the vet’s for another discussion on what to do for Tiger. To cut a long story short, again, we won’t know the cause of the fits. We do have several options, though.

Since 9 days apart is considered to be “sporadic”, it may not warrant the administration of phenobarbital (barbiturates) yet. Furthermore, barbiturates are toxic. But if push comes to shove, we would have to, in order to hopefully stop the seizures from recurring. This would be when and if the seizures become too frequent.

For now, it’s back to the supplements. A friend, Emma, shared that her epileptic cat did well with Hovid’s B Complex (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12), so I’m adding this to Tiger’s supplements. For her cat, the seizures stopped after taking this B Complex. I’ve checked with Tiger’s vet and taking both Neurobion and B Complex will not do any harm. At most, Tiger would have “expensive urine”.

Emma also alerted me to this: http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/Health_Information/HyperesthesiaSyndrome.cfm

The symptoms of hyperesthesia also fits with Tiger’s presentation. It is a type of seizure too.

Right now, it’s back to monitoring Tiger’s condition. If the seizures become too frequent, we would have to consider the phenobarbital. Even with that, some animals do not respond too.

I’ve also consulted a holistic vet too and she agrees that western medicine should be used to control the seizures first (because each time a seizure happens, there is some measure of brain damage). Then, we can look at other options (once the seizures are under control).

Meanwhile, Tiger is so traumatised by the ear drops that he is still hiding from me and he looks at me in a highly suspicious way thinking that I’m going to put the ear drops on him again. Sigh… We are stopping the ear drops because it looks like ear mites isn’t the problem. Tiger is scratching much less now and I was told that B Complex does help repel fleas too.

Source: https://myanimalcare.org/2016/07/29/tiger-has-another-epilep..

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