My cat has seizures, hoping for reassuring stories.

[SomebodyBrokeThat]

He's only 2, he's had them for about 6 months as far as we know. Vet has done some tests and reckons he's probably epileptic. They started off about every 6 weeks, but are getting more frequent, with only 2 weeks between the last ones.
I'm going back to the vet tomorrow, but just wondered if anyone has experience of this and has a happy ending. I just have a bad feeling about it, he's such a lovely cat with a great temperament. i don't want him to have to go on phenobarbitol until he absolutely has to because he's so young and the effect it will have on his liver.

[chuckeyegg]

I had a cat for about 15 years she had tablets every day of her life and they controlled any seizures. She twitched a little sometimes but it didn't seem to bother her. She was very happy and I got skilled at giving her the tablets.

I hope he is okay.

[Lizcat]

Cats and epilepsy are strange things it can just go away as can diabetes.
Equally I have feline patients who have Been taking their phenobarbital for years and are very well controlled. I have not one horror story of feline epileptics I hope that reassures you.

[SomebodyBrokeThat]

Thanks for both your responses, it's good to know that it might not necessarily affect his quality or length of life. I didn't know it could just stop happening either. Thanks again.

[shaez]

I have a male cat who is 18 years old. He started having seziures about this time last year. (although he had some facial/ear twitching for about a year before this and I'm not sure if they are related to the seizures that came later). He would have several seizures every single hour where he would fall over, paddle his paws, curl his tail, eyes would dialiate. We would consol him on a padded blanket with the lights out (as they can be very sensitive to sound/light when seizures occur). We started him immediately on phenobarbitol and antibiotics (in case it was toxoplasmosis) but did not do extensive tests other than some bloodwork to find out the cause of the seizures (as if it were a tumor we weren't doing surgery at his age). We also found out he had hyperthyroidism so we started him on methominzoyl too. For the first 3 weeks or so, he was disoriented and had trouble walking as he was getting used to the pheno, but after a few weeks, his seizures disappeared and he was able to walk just fine again. It's been almost a year without a single seizure and his quality of life seems better than it was right before his seizures (occassionally still has some focal twitches though). So far, no issues with liver values from the pheno. (I have heard that pheno in dogs is more likely to cause liver issues than in cats, although I'm not sure how true that is). I think the risk of having liver problems is worth him not having seizures as they were scary to him and us... and heartbreaking. The quality of life is terrible when he was having seizures so there is not even a thought in my mind to stop the pheno but he was also having a good 15 or so seizures a day. So we now have a very old kitty who is doing perfectly fine on pheno. He is an outside/inside cat.