Cat gets sick every week, what could it be?

Hello,

we have a 11.5 year old bengal who periodically becomes ill for a day, with the cycles becoming more frequent. Starting last year, he exhibited symptoms every month or two, for the last 6 months it happens an average of once a week (6-8 days), though for the last couple of weeks it's been more like every 4 days. We took him to the vet twice last year, he ran a complete blood screening, checked for leukemia, cystitis, worms and blockages and couldn't find anything. Haven't had any scans done, though. Symptoms include refusal to eat, weakness and lethargy. He mostly just sits in one spot all day, sort of on his haunches instead of laying relaxed. When he does move he's kind of wobbly. Eyes seem kind of unfocused. He doesn't poop or pee during this period. No vomiting, diarrhea or other discharge. He shares the house with 3 other cats, which have not shown any signs of having this.

After each of these sick days, he's back to normal and eats great. We initially thought it was something he was being exposed to something toxic outside, but ruled this out after he still became ill while keeping him indoors. No toxic substances or plants that he could be coming into contact with indoors.

This has got us stumped, anybody have any idea what this could be? Thank you for any ideas or advice.

Alex

Time for a senior blood panel and a vet check

Alex--
did you ever get a diagnosis for your cat? I have a 13 year old cat with very similar symptoms -- particularly the episodic nature. She just started being ill about a month ago, but it's been pretty much weekly ever since. She seems to recover pretty well in between episodes.

My cat, like yours, gets wobbly, refuses to eat or drink, and simply sits and stares, eyes unfocused. Before she gets to that point, she sometimes goes through a "circling" phase where she walks in circles, or if she's on the sofa or bed with us, makes circles there.

She's had every test my vet could think of including xrays-- our next step is a neurologist.

[The xray did show a relatively small right kidney, but the vet didn't seem to think that could be responsible for all this]

I'm thinking it might be feline dementia, even though she doesn't yowl at night, but she also just seems physically ill, which I wouldn't expect with dementia.

^Silly suggestion, maybe. Did your vet do a full check of minerals and vitamin levels? In people, if certain vitamins and minerals drop dangerously low they can have physical illness and neurological symptoms that can look like advanced dementia.

The small kidney could even play into that.

Not a silly suggestion-- thanks for making it! I was going to ask the neurologist about it but it turns out he's pretty confident it's a meningioma.

In case anyone ever stumbles across this thread the same way I did (google search!)--

Meningiomas are benign tumors of the membrane around the brain and/or spinal cord.

They respond better to surgery than most brain tumors.

The nuerologist thinks its likely she's had one developing for a long time (she lost some weight about a year ago, hasn't been as good at grooming herself for a few months, and has had a personality change from prickly and high-strung, to sedate and affectionate, though cats can also have the opposite personality change too)

He thinks the tumor has just gotten big enough now that when there are episodes of extra swelling, the symptoms get acute.

For him the compelling evidence was that her vision is impaired in the left eye and she always circles to the right -- evidence that something is going on on the right side of her brain.

His strategy is to test his theory with steroids. We'll give her enough to bring down the swelling and see if she seems to feel better (less out of it, more perky, more her old self, no acute episodes). If that happens, then we'll taper the steroids back down -- if her symptoms return that'll be compelling reason to do an MRI to check for the presence of a tumor. It's a 10 day course of steroids altogether-- the ramp up and taper back down included.

If an MRI finds this kind of tumor, surgery will cost about $6,000 (I'm in NYC -- it would probably be less in other parts of the country). I'm kicking myself for not having gotten insurance before, but I think they'll let me work out a payment plan. If this happens to your cat and there's no way you can afford surgery, you can usually improve that cats quality of life with steroids for awhile, depending on how advanced the tumor is.