Feline Vestibular Syndrome

We had quite a scare with one of our cats and thought she was dying.. A few weeks ago we noticed we hadn't seen one of our cats out. When she finally came out she was walking really wobbly and kept falling down. She appeared, disoriented, confused and weak/lethargic. She kept falling down and could barely stand or walk on her own. When I'd pick her up to move her she'd violently kick her back legs. She wasn't taking food and drinking on her own so I had to feed her formula (glop) with a syringe and give her water or pedialyte. She ate soft food once the day after we discovered her condition but stopped eating again. We had to keep up on syringe feedings to get some kind of food and water in her.. As we were caring for her I observed her symptoms which included:

- Wobbly or drunken walk, loss of coordination

- Disorientation/Confusion

- Head tilting

- falling

- Leaning against furniture, obstacles to walk

- Walking around in circles

- Loud yowling vocalization

There were other symptoms noted  as well. Upon searching the symptoms matched that of feline vestibular syndrome. Seeing as we had no way to a vet at the time I did frequent checkups on her, had to move her out from under furniture or place her out of harms way. I fed her formula as she would/could not eat on her own. We noticed her condition started improving and she made quite a turnaround. She's walking a lot better albeit still slightly wobbly and not back to 100% as she was. She's now back to eating and drinking on her own.

What we are concerned about is whether she is going to be permanently handicapped or is she going to recover completely? She has not recovered to the point she can run around or jump up on furniture. She's walking around better, a lot faster and without falling down but that's it. She's tried getting up on the couch with my mother but she can't quite get herself up. 

Thanks.

It is scary isn't it? You and I have probably read the same things regarding this so you know this may be idiopathic or could have an underlying cause.
I too have a cat that presented like this with a few other symptoms as well. My cat has nasopharyngeal polyps and had developed a lot of congestion which ended up causing a bacterial infection. After having antibiotics she is 99% better regarding her head tilt but it has been a process over several weeks.

Often there is never a known  reason why a cat will get this, just iike some people might wake up one morning and experience Vertigo.  Same thing.  It's happened to me.  BUT, sometimes there is a reason...inner ear infection, drug reaction, infection, that sort of thing.  In those case, however, I wouldn't think she would be improving on her own.

I would think she should get back to 100% within another week or two, but if she doesn't, then I would take her in to be checked for some underlying cause.

Thanks, she has been making some further improvements. She finally jumped up in bed with me this morning being vocal and wanting my attention, got back down on her own. I forgot to say we've been giving her small doses of Amoxicillin twice a day so that might have helped. She seems to be vocal and craving attention which is unusual for her but I think that's her way of saying thanks. <3

She's back to her old self and has been wanting more attention and is extremely affectionate. She's back to running around and jumping on things. That's quite an improvement from being incapacitated and unable to eat/drink and get to the catbox on her own. I'm so happy and relieved and good thing I did some research and fed her when she couldn't eat.

Yay!!!!   Great news.  They can be such a worry when they aren't "right", right?  So glad this corrected itself and she's back to her old self.  Hopefully it won't happen again

So happy to hear! That is wonderful news