RE:Feline Hyperesthesia

I tried a set off meds for problem which stop the Feline Hyperesthesia but my cat had no life, now things are so bad . They want me to try new ones but i hate to see cat with side effects and hate to she her with Feline Hyperesthesia with out the meds, They also think if they dont work this time for her to go cat heaven but she only 16 months . I feel i cant win and so confused whats the right thing for cat . Anyone got any ideas????

vi- I lost my sweet girl to this disease a few years ago. It is troubling, baffling, maddening, and not that much is known about it. In Bacardi's case, it was the mixture of the meds IMO that started the seizures that ultimately led to her demise. She was part siamese, which i did find out that breed is susceptible to this malady, and she was not very old when she passed. If I could have, I would have made her passing easier than it was. The effects of the disease left quite a mark on her personality and her body.

How sad. I don't know anything about this disease but it sounds like the treatment isn't much better then the disease itself. I'm so sorry you're going through this. Poor little kitty..... give her a kiss for me.

Thanks for relpys, few questions for u hissy, did your cat bite u?. how meds did u try??. did your cat suffer from fever also with it??? if can answer these for me be great

Yes she would bite me if I touched her back or her tail. But she did it a spastic way, if I can try and explain, like some sort of seizure response, and not out of meaness. They can be (I found out after getting bit and doing some research) when you touch them, they can feel actual pain. They put her on amnitriptylene, Paxil, clomipramine, zoloft and diazepam, trying to stop the behavior, and slow her hallucinations. She was constantly attacking her tail and anal area, she would bolt out of of the house and start running in the yard in circles smaller and smaller until she would drop panting in a heap. We tried every way we could think of to break the "trances" (my word for how she would get) It is similar, one specialist told me, to having an autistic child with OCD. She never ran fevers, but the seizures began a few months after I finally figured out what was wrong with her. The vets in my area had never heard about Feline Hyperesthesia until I started reseaching on my own over the internet to find out what was wrong with my cat.

I wrote an article about it after she passed away. It's on site here, you can look up through the internal search engine on the website (not the forum) feline hyperesthesia to find it.

I wish you the best of luck, if your cat indeed has this.And a better outcome than we experienced with it.

Thanks hissy , i look your article , thanks was a help. My cat crossbred all black,she bites and attacks everyone , i have tried her on amnitriptylene, that was no good , cant put her anything for now till get fever under control. All know she really bad case and all new to vets here Ireland so very hit and miss. How seizures did your cat have a day ?? Sorry to annoy with these questions but no one else to ask??

No problem- Just something I learned to late in this. Do NOT let your vets switch medications on you without waiting at least 4-6 months. It takes that long for the chemicals to leave the cat's body from one drug and be able to accept another.

I understand your frustration well. All the vets I went to initially had no clue what was going on with Barcardi and she was misdiagnosed twice. I was even told to put her down by a vet tech! That was after the tech got severly bitten. I finally went to Google and looked up cat twitching skin- suddenly there were websites, webpages and papers to read about this. I took everything, printed it out, put it in a folder handed it to my vet and begged him to read it and compare it with Bacardi chart notes- lo and behold, I had nailed what was wrong with her. The only problem was, no one could fix it correctly.

I got behavior(cant it spell ) in and she told it it was Feline Hyperesthesia and a bad case off it. We have up about 20+ seizures per day , its hard to look at. I was told she not in pain and that she doesnt know she doing it , is that truth???