Todd Had a Seizure Tonight.. :( (CRF, Anemia,Diabetes)

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ToddyTiger

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To start with.. Todd (17 years old) has been doing pretty well for the last 6 months, all things considered. He's still losing weight due to the CRF, but he has been eating, drinking, peeing and acting pretty darn good!

However, the last few days he was looking yucky, and this morning he didn't want to eat. We had an appointment set up for Friday, so he could get blood work and all that fun stuff done, but I bumped it up to today, since he wouldn't eat.

They kept him for the day and did all the blood work (won't be back until tomorrow in the am) and they gave him some IV fluids, because he seemed dehydrated. They also gave him something for his appetite (don't recall the name) and sadly.. they gave him Convenia. This was our regular vet office, but not our regular vet.. so they didn't know that I don't like Todd receiving Convenia.. I've heard bad things about it. They said he was fine all day, mostly slept and they force fed him a couple of times.

I picked him up at 7:20pm and we got home by 7:30pm.. I let him out of his carrier and he went pee in his box, drank some water and went to look in his empty food dish. So I thought oh, I bet he's hungry. So I went off to the kitchen to get him food.. I was gone not even 3 minutes. I open the door to my office (where he has been staying) and his head is twitching, then he circles 2 to 3 times to the right, like he's chasing his tail, then he just flopped over and started having a seizure. It lasted less than a minute, but it felt like forever. I know not to touch an animal when they are having a seizure, so I waited until it passed.. he went stiff as a board and then tried to hop up, but his back legs just didn't want to work. I got him in his carrier, ran out the door and took off for the ER vet. By the way, he has NEVER had a seizure before... and this happened within 20 minutes of getting home from our vet.

They ran a blood panel on him at the E-vet. His kidney values are still high, but are lower than they were 6 months ago (YAY), however, he is VERY anemic. 13 was the number they gave me.. they recommended a blood transfusion, a bunch of medications for anemia, MRI, X-Ray, 3 days in the ER, more IV fluids and some other little things.. We were there for almost 5 hours. Oh, and his blood pressure was 100. We did not do any of that.. I want to talk to our regular vet tomorrow morning and see what the options are.. What needs to be done, we will do.. but I think the ER vet was going overboard and we didn't have the full picture, nor did we have $4,000. The doctor had NO idea why he had a seizure.. she said it could be anything from a brain tumor, a mini stroke, or.. no reason at all. She said he may have more, or he may never have one again. We don't know... I have a pretty darn good idea of what may have caused it though. :/ I wish I had known that was going to be given to him. We ended up coming home (it's been about 30 minutes now) and Todd is resting in his little heated bed until his AM vet appointment. They sent me home with some valium to give rectally if he has another seizure. I have hope that it was a one time only thing...

Anyway.. Does anyone have any recommendations for dealing with that bad of anemia?.. or even seizures (in case he has more).. I'm so worried that I feel like I should be up all night watching him. But I also need to sleep at some point.

I will post his bloodwork in the morning, once we have it back.

-Sarah
 
Sarah I am so sorry, that must have been horrible for both of you! I have not dealt with anemia but I did have a cat that had seizures .... she was very difficult to deal with and hated the vet(s). She would have seizures so bad that she would bite into her side and open it up horribly. a million tests never told us why but we learned to deal with them and finally, by accident we found out if she had a shot of pred. every 6 wks. no seizures, don't know why. We used to call her the duct tape cat because no bandage would stay on her sides where she bit down to .... so I would bandage, then cover all around her body in the middle with DT :) we did that for years. (she was a strange cat would ONLY eat raw turkey meat) BUT she lived to an old, old age, only the last part seizure free. So have hope, it may be nothing .... if it is something you will be able to deal with it. My healing vibes I'm sending your way.

Nancy and Payne
 
Thank you Nancy!

Curious.. it's been several hours since his seizure, but he's still really having a hard time with his back legs. He was wobbily to start with.. is this normal hours after a seizure??
 
It sounds like Todd has a lot of issues and needs to be stabilised. As far as treating the anemia, you need to know why he is anemic. Anemia can be regenerative or non regenerative (i.e. the kitty is able to make red blood cells, but they are being lost, or the kitty has lost the ability to make enough red blood cells). A test for reticulocytes (this may have been included in his CBC tests) can help your vet determine if the anemia is regenerative or not. A cat with advanced kidney failure may have non regenerative anemia. They lack enough of the hormone erythropoeitin to stimulate red blood cell production. Erythropoeitin can be given to these cats (either as Epogen or Aranesp). It is a very complicated issue, and these drugs can have very serious side effects, so your vet must know what he is doing with them. You need to rule out anemia due to some other reason, for instance GI bleeding, as these drugs will not help with that type of anemia.
 
When my Buster has seizures, I grab a very large towel and wrap her in it.

I do this for several reasons:
1) she is now peeing while in seizure, the towel will absorb it
2) she's drooling and I can take an end and wipe her mouth
3) I can hold her in place and keep her contained, so she doesn't hurt herself or fall

It is a very scare to witness a seizure and while it doesn't last long, it seems like forever. Buster's seizures started out 30 seconds and can now last for several minutes, she also can have multiple seizures.

Don't be afraid to touch or hold Todd while in seizure. Just keep your hands away from the mouth as he may chomp down and that really hurts.

Hopefully, this won't happen again, but if it does, at least your prepared.
 
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