Seizure #18 - 7/15/07, 5:14 AM. He was sleeping, I assume. I don't know how long it had been going on when it woke me up, but this seemed like a short one. He was just laying on his side, and once I wiped the foam off his face and neck, he put his head back down and just laid there. It crossed my mind to wonder if he was still breathing. He was, thank goodness. There had been foaming, jaw snapping, and some body jerking. It took him a while - probably nearly a minute - to get up and start pacing. He moved really fast when he did, and by the second round, when he'd returned to the kitchen, I had food ready for him. He immediately stopped to eat, and I went back to bed because I thought that would be the end of it. Not. Burble refused to let Milk alone. And Busy joined in. From 5:15 to a little after 7:00, they were thumping and racing and banging into things, up and down the steps, meowing, and carrying on. I was so afraid that it would trigger another seizure. I got to pet him a half dozen times when he paused in exhaustion, but he wouldn't sit on my lap, and Burble wouldn't stay away.
So much for my different manufacturer theory. He had both pills yesterday from the brand new/old manufacturer prescription that I picked up yesterday morning. Maybe they just haven't had time to start working? How much delusion can I churn up here? I'm thinking, since I have to go to the dentist tomorrow afternoon and maybe we could see if the phenobarb blood levels are deficient today while the pills are new - maybe it'd be worth taking him down there this afternoon. I supposed they'd have to hold the blood till tomorrow afternoon anyway.
Seizure #19, 7/15/07, 9:00 PM I didn't see this one, but Milk came into the kitchen meowing his seizure meow - frantic and urgent - and started looking for a bowl of something to eat. When I got close to him, his fur was soaked, all down his chest and up around the back of his head. When I went to the kitchen to fix their food, he was asleep in a Kitty Pi on the couch. I hate hate hate when he has to come to after a seizure and I'm not there to clean him up and feed him right away.
#20 7/ 17/07, 8:15 AM Mild seizure. He woke me because of the foaming sounds, but he was sitting, leaning against the back of the couch, and there was very little jerking - very little movement of any kind, actually. I wiped up the saliva, and he just sat there. I left the living room twice, and he still didn't change position. He did eventually jump down, but skipped the pacing and meowing. He found the remnants of last night's late night snack and tried to eat it, so I gave him a can of FF, which he ate. Then he and Burble did a lot of running around and he meowed quite a bit. Sometimes it seems odd that he is so much more coordinated and active directly after a seizure than he normally is on medication. I wonder if that's significant.
Took him to Dr. G. yesterday afternoon to have bloodwork done for phenobarb levels. The results will hopefully be in this afternoon, although I'm not sure what the possible responses will be. His levels were already high the last time, and he wasn't having seizures at all then. This really stinks.
Blood work results came back on 7/17 - phenobarbital level is 25. (Can't remember if there's a decimal there or not.) So he does, at the present moment, have slightly less of the drug circulating in his blood than he did when he was seizure free. However, if the blood level is supposed to be as close to 20 as possible, which is what I have read, is that a problem with increasing the dosage? Dr. G. wants to begin by increasing the dosage by another 1/2 tablet - that'd be around 24 mg one time a day, and 16 the second. Which comes to 40 mg total, I believe. I think the accepted dosage is .2 -.4 mg/kg of weight. He weighs almost exactly 10 pounds - down from 12 pounds the week before the seizures started, by the way. So, he'd be close to the maximum dosage. I don't know. I just want the multiple seizures a day/week to stop. Right now.
Seizure #21 - 7/19/07 at 8:00 AM. Now this was an odd one. He had been asleep on the footrest of my chair. There was a minimal amount of just about everything by the time I realized it was happening. Not a ton of foaming, hardly any jerking, but while I was wiping his face and chest, he made a horrible growling/moaning sort of howl - only the second time he's ever made noise during a seizure. And it seemed totally involuntary. He really didn't appear to be aware that he had done it, or that he'd even heard it, although the other three cats all came running to see what was going on. Once I had his face wiped off, everything just stopped. It had been only a matter of seconds. He just laid there, totally relaxed. There was none of the usual after-seizure activity - no pacing, no meowing, no eating. He seemed alert, though, more than usual. After a few minutes, he jumped down. And in about 15 minutes, I had his food ready, and he did want to eat. (He has so little appetite on phenobarb that about the only time he really eats enthusiastically is after a seizure.) He's still wandering around a half hour afterward in total silence, which is unusual.
It would appear - or my GUESS is - that the increased dosage is actually affecting both the length and severity of his seizure. I don't know how to explain that awful noise. Maybe it was coming from a different part of the brain or something. So maybe there's some hope that giving what seems like a LOT of phenobarb - especially when he's lost so much weight (2 pounds since March when the seizures began) will actually control them again. Hopefully.
Seizure #22: 7/19/07 2:15 PM or so. Enough already. Milk just came out of the bedroom, walking kind of tentatively. I'm starting to recognize when something's happened. Sure enough, his chest was soaked. And as soon as I mopped him up, he started his seizure meow and headed for the kitchen. He's very wobbly this time, though, and he threw up a tiny little bit after he ate - he's never had a hairball, but maybe.... Tiny little bit of pacing and meowing.
