No diagnosis for my kitty's symptoms

Hi everyone,

I'll just start by saying I am in regular contact with several vets about all of these issues.

My cat's background is that she has a heart condition - a ventricular septal defect which was initially diagnosed as being very large at 4 months. Now at 2 yrs 8 months, we recently found last month that the hole was actually quite small. She has been essentially assymptomatic and had some mild left atrial enlargement, nothing else. It was the best news we could have hoped for.

So 2 days ago, about a month after her cardiac consult, I woke to find Luna very dopey and tired - she didn't greet me as usual. I thought it was strange and went to make my breakfast. I then heard her meow and saw her having a seizure with her whole body involved and roll onto her side. She lost consciousness after about 15 seconds and I couldn't rouse her. I grabbed her and threw her in my car, I wasnt 100 percent at the time whether she was having a heart attack or seizure. She regained consciousness in the car and seemed better. I took her to the vet room straight away and she had 2 more seizures, about 1 min each and separated by 5 mins or so. My family vet gave me rectal valium just in case and told me to drive to the speciality vet. She had a seizure on the 20 min car ride, like the others on the way but no more since.

The speciality vets kept her overnight. She had no more seizures but had a temp of 40, possibly reduced sensation in her right side of her face and was very drowsy. Her heart rate was high and her blood pressure was low.

They did every test you can think of. Everything was fine. Did an MRI that night which was normal. She started doing a lot better and behaving normally. Only thing was her temp remained at 40 through the night and next morning. They gave antibiotics and it eventually returned to normal but took some time.

They are unsure what her diagnosis is at this stage. I am taking her back but has anyone had a similar case with their cat? The doctor was concerned about FID due to the temp but said that he couldn't see anything with the ultrasound or on the MRI brain to see any granulomas. They were also querying if it was epilepsy.

I have her home and she seems good. Her temp rectal was 39.2 today. Shes purring way more than normal - could she be in pain?

I looked up FIP and freaked out. She doesn't have a lot of the symptoms. They were considering a spinal tap but when her temp improved said it was not really worth the risk but they would if the temp becomes abnormal again.

I have faith the vets are doing everything they can but I'm really worried about the cause of all this. Has anyone had experience with dry FIP? Or anything like this?

Other medical issues are Chlostridium perfringens and possibly Ehler's Danlos Syndrome. My poor kitty has already had so many obstacles and I'm worried about more.

I am also really struggling to take her temp rectally. It takes too long for the temp to stop climbing in terms of keeping her still so the vet nurse did it for me today.

She also was shaking whole body after I tried while I hope was stress and not neurological.I noticed she had facial tremors about a month ago too.

Now she was sort of chomping her jaw a but stopped and seems okay resting..What on earth is happening? [emoji]128546[/emoji]

This is her after the hospital stay. Her paw has gone down by the way, the bandage is removed!

natalie708 said:

Now she was sort of chomping her jaw a but stopped and seems okay resting..What on earth is happening? [emoji]128546[/emoji]

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Hi

clearly a lot going on with your sweet cat.  Some cats develop epilepsy and it responds to treatment.  As to FIP, you really shouldn't worry about that.  I almost wish people couldn't google it.  It's extremely rare, and the common version (wet form) makes a cat extremely sick very quickly usually resulting in euthanasia at the first vet visit.

A Temp pf 40C, is 104F so a fever to be sure.

Chlostridium perfringens causes diarrhea and is testable and doesn't seem to apply in this case.

Ehler's Danlos Syndrome causes saggy painful skin, also doesn't apply in this case.

Your vets seem to have a lot of tools at their disposal, but you and they may do well to remember that adage that all doctors are trained with (in north america and similar), "If youre standing in a field and hear hooves galloping behind you, think horses before you think zebras"  In other start with the most common causes and go from there.  I think you're looking too hard for zebras.  Epilepsy, an infection, something pertaining to the heart condition, are the best places to likely start.

The fever is a concern, and so maybe antibiotics and monitoring is a good way to go.  If the seizures come back than a trial of an anti seizure drug may be a good next step.

Thanks so much. I guess FIP was just a differential but since it's been mentioned I can't stop thinking about it. She certainly doesn't seem too unwell at the moment. Thankyou for putting things into perspective for me.

Sure thing. Better always to work out from symptoms to diagnosis rather than look for illnesses and see if they fit the symptoms. You can ALWAYS find illnesses that contain some of the symptoms and still be wrong every time. Make sense?

Yeah I do thanks. And I guess because they are unsure of her diagnosis FIP is one of those things that come up - since it too can be difficult to diagnose. I wish they never mentioned it. And then I never googled it. Lol.