Feline Seizures & Neuron Death

Feline seizures can be caused by trauma, viral or bacterial infections, drug overdose or epilepsy. Other metabolic disorders that can cause seizures include diabetes mellitus, kidney failure or liver failure. Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) also has been found to cause seizures and neuron death.

  1. Causes

    • In addition to the aforementioned causes, seizures can also be an inherited trait. For seizures with no known cause, veterinarians generally diagnose the feline with epilepsy. This is a life-long condition.

    Neuron Death

    • During a seizure, the neurons in the cat's brain function independently of each other and misfire. These misfires are the cause of the cat's losing consciousness, becoming unaware of surroundings and/or having quick, uncoordinated movements. FIV has been found to damage a cat's neurons, possibly causing seizure or damaging the neuron enough to cause neuron death.

    Symptoms

    • Cats with epilepsy typically start having seizures between two and three years of age. As with seizures caused by trauma or disease, the cat may develop a blank stare, shake one leg or cry out. This stage is the mildest and is called petit mal seizure. These episodes generally last one minute.
      Grand mal seizures are characterized by the cat's falling to one side, urinating or defecating uncontrollably, paddling its feet, frothing at the mouth and/or crying out. These episodes usually last five minutes or less.
      The worst seizure symptoms are the ones that occur in the status epilepticus state. The cat will display the same symptoms as a grand mal seizure but the episode lasts for hours. After recovering from one status epilepticus seizure, it will have another one.

    Risks

    • Seizures, except for the status epilepticus, are not life-threatening unless the cat is in an unsafe or uncontrolled environment. Status epilepticus seizures, on the other hand, can cause severe organ damage and possibly death as the body's temperature becomes critically high while the body convulses violently for hours.

    Treatment

    • Epilepsy is an incurable disorder that is controlled by anticonvulsant medications such as Phenobarbital. Phenobarbital sedates the neurons in the brain to control the severity and frequency of seizures. Veterinarians do not usually prescribe anticonvulsant drugs unless the cat has more than one seizure monthly lasting more than 30 minutes.