What Causes Seizures in Cats? : Overview Of Causes and Prevention Of Seizures!

It is extremely upsetting to watch your beloved cat having a seizure. Single seizure is very short in duration and the cat might get unconscious when convulsing. Now the question is that what are seizures? Seizures occur when some sort of abnormal electrochemical action or activity happens in the cat’s brain. The seizures can occur at a single point of time, or as a series of seizures in a short duration or can occur on a recurring basis usually in few weeks or months.

Usually, a seizure begins when a cat collapses on the ground, goes stiff and gets convulsions- like uncontrolled contractions of muscles, which creates an impression that the cat is jerking its body, snapping the jaw, paddling the feet and other such similar movements. During a seizure, your cat can empty its bladder and bowels as well. Generally, the seizure in a cat lasts for one minute or two.

There is a chance that your cat will display some changes in its behaviour before getting a seizure attack such as, vomiting, yowling, circling or pacing. Your cat might have the tendency to show disorientation in the form of temporary paralysis in one or two legs, show blindness, vomit, or other behavioural changes. Although, the changes are sort lived, the cat may take some days to recover completely and be “normal” again.

Primary causes of seizure in cats

The most common cause of seizure is the serious brain damage as a result of any previous tragedy, or bacterial and viral infections, drug overdose and poisonings. Usually the cat has recovered from this previous brain damage and shows no symptoms related to it. Some of the seizures occur with no apparent cause. These are the forms of “epilepsy”. Further, seizure might be caused by any of the following conditions-

1. Idiopathic or primary epilepsy

2. Certain medications

3. Damage to brain caused by poor blood flow or trauma to the brain

4. Kidney disorders

5. Infection’

6. Liver disorders

7. Hyperthermia and fever

8. Toxins such as, chocolate, lead, and anti freeze

9. Brain tumours

10. Blood glucose levels which get very high (example- diabetes mellitus)

11. Bacterial and Viral– Seizure can be caused by any kind of head injury. In cats, dog fights and car accidents are the most common form of head injury trauma. Any kind of bacterial as well as viral infections can lead to a seizure in the felines. Feline leukaemia virus as well as feline immunodeficiency virus can be responsible for causing seizure in the cats.

12. Poisons- Sometimes the domestic cats eat toxic plants, which contain many chemicals, pesticides or herbicides which can ultimately result into a cat seizure. Drug overdoses, feline medication prescriptions or human medication prescriptions, both can cause a seizure in cats. An overdose of a medication, or taking wrong medication, can lead to an extremely life threatening and dangerous seizures.

13. Underlying illnesses- Some of the most common underlying illnesses such as kidney failure, diabetes, or liver failure might lead to a seizure. Due to very low levels of blood sugar in diabetes, seizures are most common to be occurred in such diabetic cats. Further, heat strokes are also responsible for the occurrence of a seizure in felines. Epilepsy, an inherited medical situation, can also cause cat seizures. But epilepsy is not at all a common cat disease.

14. Other potential causes of seizures in cats include tumour, hypoglycaemia, meningitis and other various infections.

Idiopathic seizures- In most of the cases, the cause of a seizure remains unknown in the cats. These are rightly known as “idiopathic seizures”. This is because the cause is not discovered. In many cases cats suffer from idiopathic seizures on a repeated basis, but as the recovery is so spontaneous after they have received adequate medical treatments, so no major problem occurs. Underlying medical condition can also lead to a seizure in your feline companion, but in most of the cases the cause of a seizure remains undiscovered.

Immediate care

If your cat gets a seizure, your main goal should be to not to let the cat hurt itself. Usually, a seizure will last only for a one or two minutes, and it might get over the seizure before you take it to the car and drive to a vet. But still, you should prefer taking your cat to a vet after a seizure to avoid any further complications. Further, help your cat in the following ways-

1. Stay calm and avoid panicking

2. Remember that the cat is not conscious and it is making uncontrolled movements. So, it might scratch you or bite you while making such uncontrolled movements. Be extremely careful about this.

3. Sometimes the other pet animals might feel that the seizure cat is a threat to the safety of the house and its members, so they will attack the cat. Try to keep the cat safe from your other pet animals and also keep them away from the furniture and stairs etc, to keep them away from any harm.

4. Remember that when the seizure will stop, your cat might not be able to recognize you and attack you or run away.

5. Always take your cat to a vet even if the seizure stops to treat it properly.

6.Proper veterinary care is very essential. Get done a proper diagnosis of your cat to stop or prevent a recurring seizure. The essential diagnosis is completely based on the direct observation and examination of the seizure as well as the information that you will provide to the vet. Get the urine and blood test done.

 Prevention

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way to protect your cat from getting a seizure or epilepsy. Even if the beloved feline companion has been properly diagnosed and is on a good medication for epilepsy, still it will not resolve or eliminate the seizures completely.

So, the best that can be done for your cat is to reduce the severity of seizures.