Just had our first seizure

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Ella and Masha

Ella and Masha

Member Since 2020
Hey everybody,
I was awoken at 4:30 today to my cat having a seizure. Luckily she was between a closet door which she was hitting and woke me up, so at least I know about it. I froze up. My boy friend put a piece of rubber (new shoe insert) into her mouth while I called the emergency vet.
I’m freaked out. She’s freaked out. We have a vet appt at 8am already from earlier this week. She was diagnosed 2 weeks ago and my AlphaTrak will be here in 3 days. She’s on Glipizide which I hope will now change in a few hours (before she even had the seizure). I don’t know if it was hypoglycemia or a reaction to the medication.

Has anyone had experiences with seizures ? I have the print out of the hypoglycemia symptoms but since idk what caused it I don’t want to assume. My vet seems unknowledgeable in my opinion so I plan to change If he doesn’t give me insulin. What have you done? What tests do I do now ? It’s only one so far so I know another may not occur but I want to be prepared.
 
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How scary! It's impossible to say what it was without a meter. If it's going to be a few days until you get one I would suggest going to a pharmacy or store today and getting a human meter right away.

Your vet is clearly is unknowledgable of he's perscribing gilpizide instead of insulin. You need ProZinc or lantus. I've never heard of a cat doing better on gilpizide. I looked up side effects of gilpizide and seizure wasnt mentioned... But no way to know if it was from hypo or hyperglycemia without testing. What was your cats blood glucose at diagnosis??
 
One of my kitties (non-diabetic) had a couple of seizures. It was distressing (to me) but my vet, who was an excellent vet, couldn't find any explanation. He was rather up there in years.

Glipezide is not recommended for cats. Cats have the ability to go into remission from diabetes. The way glipezide works, it essentially overworks the pancreas which, if you hope for your cat to go into remission, means that the beta cells in the pancreas will "burn out" and remission won't be possible. Insulin works in an entirely different way and takes pressure off the pancreas and, hopefully, allows it to heal and begin producing enough insulin again. This is a good summary of Glipizide.

You do not need to use an AlphaTrack meter. Most of the people here use a human meter. The strips for the AT meter are very expensive. Vets seem to like to recommend the AT meter because it's more accurate. They seem to have forgotten that they were using human meters for quite some time since pet specific meters are relatively new. Please get a human meter. It's highly likely that the seizure was due to hypoglycemia. If that's the case, you need to be able to keep your kitty safe and home testing is the only way to do that.
 
JanetNJ said:
How scary! It's impossible to say what it was without a meter. If it's going to be a few days until you get one I would suggest going to a pharmacy or store today and getting a human meter right away.

Your vet is clearly is unknowledgable of he's perscribing gilpizide instead of insulin. You need ProZinc or lantus. I've never heard of a cat doing better on gilpizide. I looked up side effects of gilpizide and seizure wasnt mentioned... But no way to know if it was from hypo or hyperglycemia without testing. What was your cats blood glucose at diagnosis??
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Thanks for the reply. I fed her at 5am and at 830am her glucose was 103. At diagnosis it was 320 (2 weeks ago). Sadly , because her glucose was so low he said he wants to keep her on Glipizide since it “seems to be working”. Regardless , I found a 24/7 hospital that takes normal appointments that said they believe she should be on insulin. I’ll be switching vets within the new few weeks while I monitor her. Thank you !
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
One of my kitties (non-diabetic) had a couple of seizures. It was distressing (to me) but my vet, who was an excellent vet, couldn't find any explanation. He was rather up there in years.

Glipezide is not recommended for cats. Cats have the ability to go into remission from diabetes. The way glipezide works, it essentially overworks the pancreas which, if you hope for your cat to go into remission, means that the beta cells in the pancreas will "burn out" and remission won't be possible. Insulin works in an entirely different way and takes pressure off the pancreas and, hopefully, allows it to heal and begin producing enough insulin again. This is a good summary of Glipizide.

You do not need to use an AlphaTrack meter. Most of the people here use a human meter. The strips for the AT meter are very expensive. Vets seem to like to recommend the AT meter because it's more accurate. They seem to have forgotten that they were using human meters for quite some time since pet specific meters are relatively new. Please get a human meter. It's highly likely that the seizure was due to hypoglycemia. If that's the case, you need to be able to keep your kitty safe and home testing is the only way to do that.
Click to expand...

thanks for your reply. My vet decided to keep her on Glipizide since her glucose was 103 about 4 hours after the seizure and after I fed her. I’ll be switching to a hospital I spoke to while the seizure was happening.

He did give me a prescription for the Libre Freestyle so I can monitor for hopefully 10 days nonstop while I figure out why he doesn’t want her on insulin. I have a follow up on Monday so I’m wondering if I should not give her the Glipizide until then at all until I have the Libre in her and I’m sure they will test her. I switched her diet completely to tiki cat from Purina pro plan so maybe that’s why I’m assuming the hypoglycemia happened. It’s only been 2 weeks since diagnosis and already this happened :(
 
Ella and Masha said:
Thanks for the reply. I fed her at 5am and at 830am her glucose was 103. At diagnosis it was 320 (2 weeks ago). Sadly , because her glucose was so low he said he wants to keep her on Glipizide since it “seems to be working”. Regardless , I found a 24/7 hospital that takes normal appointments that said they believe she should be on insulin. I’ll be switching vets within the new few weeks while I monitor her. Thank you !
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It could be she is controlled with just a change in diet. Did he diagnose her with a fructosamine test or just one blood draw?
 
Ella and Masha said:
Yes I agree. I’ll have the 24/7 tracking on the libre which will be easier to monitor since I haven’t done any testing myself yet.

it was a pre anesthesia 5 panel in end of March that was about 240 which brought up the diabetes thoughts. In May I did full panel blood work where it was 320.

The alt was 192 today but was considered “normal” from a 28-130 (pre anesthesia panel today for glucose test). I’ll keep an eye without the medicine with the libre. I’ve watched your YouTube video , thank you for it :bighug: I’ll be using it within the next few weeks
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It may turn out he just needs 0.5-1 unit of insulin for a while. He's a good candidate for remission I'm sure.
 
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