brewinhard wrote:Glad to see you and Ninkasi are still kicking. Haven't heard from you in a while. I just figured you might still be digging out of the snow from this winter. Did you end up getting any meds for the cat's seizures?
My old vet (who was the large cat curator for ZooMontana) moved out of state so I had a hell of a time finding someone else who was qualified to look at him. Since it's really dangerous to put large cats under we were hesitant at first but when he continued to have them it was necessary.
We gave him a real light dose & scrambled to get as many tests done as possible. X-Rays came back good, organ function was good (worried that it could be liver/kidney failure) & the bloodwork came back clean with an elevated white cell count. There were no signs of viruses, so the only assumption from there was some sort of a bacterial infection.
We tried a wide spectrum anti-biotic for a few weeks which showed a slight improvement. He was still having episodes so we went for another round of the same drug. 6-7 weeks after the initial episodes he wasn't 100%, but he wasn't having episodes & had 80% mobility (even when he wasn't having episodes he was walking like he was drunk & falling over a lot). I kept a close eye on him hoping that he would just continue to improve.
Unfortunately a couple weeks later he had another series of massive episodes, just like the first ones & I almost lost him again. This time we tried a different drug, another wide-spectrum antibiotic. He's seemingly kicked it after that. 99% mobility & we haven't had an episode for a while now.
His 5th birthday was 2.5 weeks ago. I got him a new harness & a tough mouse toy. He hasn't stopped bouncing around the house since, which is a huge relief. He loves that stupid little mouse. I'm still keeping a pretty close eye on him for any indicators that it might come back, but so far we're looking pretty good.