Good morning!
First and foremost, thank you for doing the work that you do!
I have a 7-year-old orange tabby named Milo. He started having seizures a couple of years ago. It became frequent enough that the vet decided to put him on the antiseizure medicine Phenobarbital. That was working okay, but then I started to notice that he was losing weight. Now, just to be clear, Milo enjoys his food, so he could benefit from losing some weight. However, he lost a considerable amount of weight in a short period. He also became lethargic.
I took him back to the vet, and after bloodwork, it was determined that it was affecting his liver, and he was anemic. The vet wanted to put him on Zonisamide instead. It was expensive, but we didn’t mind. We were told that the options were limited as to what he could be put on, and this was the only other suggestion that she had, so we took it.
Fast-forward a couple of months. It became nearly impossible to give him this medication. Milo would hide all day, and when we dragged him out of hiding to give him this medication twice a day, he would foam at the mouth and run back to his hiding spot. He was traumatized (I think!) from taking this medication.
My husband and I sat down to talk about this. We decided that we were going to take him off the medication because we wanted a better quality of life for him. At this point, he is back to being healthy overall (except for the few extra pounds he still carries).
He still has seizures, and on average, I would say that he has two a month. They are always at night. I’ve read that nighttime is a trigger because of increased brain activity. When he has them, they typically last under a minute (I’ve been woken up by him when he has them because he sleeps with us). He loses control of his bladder and will pee. He will foam at the mouth. Once he “comes out” of his seizure, he will then circle and meow for five (ish) minutes after. He is typically back to normal within 30 minutes.
Here are my questions:
(1) Would you recommend that he go back on antiseizure medication?
(2) Are the seizures affecting his brain? Or are seizures typically harmless?
(3) If medication is recommended, are there any other options besides the two that we have already tried?
Thank you for any insight you can give! I just want what is best for our Milo Man, and if that is medication, then we are fine going back down that route. But, at the same time, I do not want him to live in fear of taking the medication.