You may know going by my previous threads i lost my cat Suschi about 8wks ago. Now it seems i'm slowly losing my other cat Heidi.

Heidi has this condition..there's no word for it cause it's such a mystery. Basically for some unknown reason her immune systems keeps attacking her body and everytime she goes through these episodes...she's literally brought to the 'point of no return'...on her deathbed. But somehow, someway she keeps fighting back and comes back home from the vets bright as day. We've had her for just over 2yrs now and 3 times she's been at the vets with the same problem. She was only in 4/5wks ago but last Friday she went downhill in the spcae of an hour. We know the symptoms so as soon as we saw it starting to happen we rushed to the vets at 8pm. This thing of her immune system attacking her body then creates other huge problems....her potassium levels drop severly low, she becomes extremely weak and bit by bit she gets dehydrated, it also effects her stomach severly and her gut. The vets always make her better......Heidi always fights back but this keeps happening and we don't know why. Vets believe it'll happen again...we've just no idea when. Could be tomorrow..could be a week or maybe a year..but it's gonna happen again. The more often it happens the more these episodes becomes hard to come back from.

I'm at a lost....i've no idea why it's happen and neither do the vets. They do believe that it happened earlier on in life when she was a kitten and whoever had her didn't check it out and so the problem has now become irreversible. Heidi will never be a healthy cat..she'll just be at 65%.

How it all starts and when we begin to notice something isn't right.....is when we find Heidi randomly sitting in a place, like the middle of the kitchen. Then she will slowly move to a comfortable place and settle down. Then she will stare into space...and won't even respond to NOTHING, you could clap right in front and she wouldn't blink....she'll try to sleep but she can't cause she finds it a struggle to shut her eyes and so she'll just stare and stare, her head then becomes to hard for her to lift and so it flops.....and when she tris to walk...she looks so unsteady and 'drunk' and she'll literally crawl cause she simply has no energy. when this happens we know she's going through these awful episodes.

Heidi has had a very tough start in life and this condition can cause her so much pain when she goes through these awful stages and the vets said if this get worse or it happens much more often then it'll be time to be pts.But as long as she keeps bouncing back vets wont even consider that option.This is why i will not let her out, cause if this happens outdoors, she won't survive an hour and she wont be able to make it home cause she gets so weak....she can only walk about 2 steps before she collaspse. It's heartbreaking cause she loves the outdoors but it's too much of a risk. If anything happens at least she's inside and safe...and we'll know about it. Luckily everytime these periods happens she's been in and so we've rushed her to vets...but imagine if she's out....i'd not dare to think. We being referred to a specialist to see if we can understand why this happens and to see if we can control it alot better to stop these episodes happening.

Everytime she goes vets, she's had to be pumped with lots of steriods, antibiotics and medication plus she's been put on a drip everytime she's been admitted. The stress and pain this has brought me cause not long ago did i lose my Suschi, but now for certain i know Heidi will go...eventually. I can't see us having her any longer then beyond a year. BUt...she may defy odds and live to old age, but what remains to be see is how often this episodes will happen. I'd love to know the exact route off all this...why is it her immune system attacks her body...why. And when that happens loads and loads of other stuff goes wrong and in the end Heidi is an absolute mess.....on her deathbed.

Has anyone experienced anything like this??? I just dunno...everyone is stumped...

Here's pictures of Heidi...she isn't the prettist of cats i'd admit...but to me she is adorable and very beautiful.

http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n...na-1990/Heidi/

She is pretty. I love dark torites. Has she been checked out for narcalepsy at all. It just the looking into space made me think of that. Low potasitsm which in humans can make them look like they had somesort of stroke i think. I can not think of anything else but i have torties myself and have a slight soft spot for them

She is our 4th Tortie. Shelly my other cat is tortie and Evie is a white tortie, but we did have another cat long time ago called Micha and she was another tortie. My dad loves them cause there ever so unique. I do love my Heidi and she may look scruffy but i wouldn't change a thing about her. Her condition makes her look like that. What is Narcalepsy??? Vets have done all the test they can and nothing can really be named as to what is happening. Maybe when we're referred to the specialist they will do further test that local veternairy surgeries can't. When i say look into space...it's not a direct stare at anything...it's like wherever her head is pointing...so are her eyes...it's like she can't shut them cause it's too much of a struggle.

Although when Heidi is good...she's soo bright and ever so clever.

Just seen your message on photobucket. Thanks.

Narcolepsy is when you fall asleep and don't have any control of it. The film "My Own Private Idaho" had someone with narcolepsy.

Your Heidi is very pretty. It could be recessive genes.I'll ask a scientist friend of mine who works in vetinary microbiology next time I see him if he has any ideas.

Is this what she has?

Feline Hypokalemic Polymyopathy


There's more information here - Hypokalemic polymyopathy

Hope you find out what's going on - she's a lovely cat.

Yeh please do. And thanks...everyone loves Heidi and her face when she wanting to eat something is very cheeky lol.

Maybe - i read that a few days back and all those symptoms occur in Heidi. But she doesn't tend to have muscle weakness. It just when she has these episodes she's very weak and can't do anything and when she wants to move she's very VERY unsteady and it's like she's crawling with her underneath literally touching the loor as she moves. Atm she's on Steriods for life, antibiotics and Potassium suplementation. this is the first time she's been on potassium supplements so we'll see if that helps. Her potassium is constantly low. I aksed vets will she be on it for life and they are unsure.....everytime we have to rush her in...one of the problems is low potassium and even after she's been built up, her test still show low potassium but an increase from before she was admitted. I think they should keep her on for life, but they weren't sure.

Her diet intake is very limited...all she can eat is rice, potatoes, white fish and chicken and these prescribed ID pouches from the vets. Once a week however we do give her Purina dry sensitive food just for a change and maybe once a month some proper cat food, be it canned our pouch...just so she can have a change. Heidi is very good cause she'll always eat...she doesn't seem to bet bored with the same thing and she happily munches her food with all her medicine mixed it...we're very lucky. Heidi also suffers from constant diarrhea although it's not always watery...just really soft. I've never seen her do a 'hardish' poop. That's why she always drinks tones of water and why she gets dehydrated often.

Right now Heidi has decided to walk all over my laptop lol and settled down on my lap. She's fine and in a good healthy state...for now.

With such a restricted diet, is she getting enough Taurine? A deficiency can affect the heart.

ETA: Also, she doesn't need rice or potato. rice and potato (and worse) are added as cheap filler to comercial cat food.

Oh babes, she is gorgeous. Hope you can find the help you both need xx

http://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/...epsy_cataplexy
very interesting read

Stress Monkey - I'm just going by what the vet has said for the last year now. We don't always include potatoes and rice..we mostly just give her chicken or white fish. The thing is...whatever Heidi eats...for some unknown reason her immune system will attack it beit her restricted food or cat food. The blander it is, the better. If we gaave her cat food all the time she'd be constantly pooing out diarrhea. The bland food is to help her in the aspect. I often did wonder if she's getting enough important things like taurine and vitamins and so forth but even if she does vets said it'll make no difference cause he condition wont allow her to absorb vitamins and nutrients very well.

I'm glad to know everyone likes her lol. I always thought people would think shes very scrappy.

Maisey Moo, i read that and it's a very interesting read. It's simliar symptoms that Heidi has..but there a several difference. When Heidi goes downhill, it'll happen in a space of an hour...thereafter she will just detoriate. and will lie down and her head will sometimes twitch and shake a little. And the only way for her to get better is being admitted, we can't leave her like that cause give her 12hrs and she will slowly and painfully pass away.

I'm a very sad mood cause Heidi wants to get out...she's now suddenly not satified with just the garden...she wants out and she'll look at you with this sad face and meow...it's killing me. We tried a harness this morning and she was ok..several growls but she coped better then most cats would, we walked her down the road to this old lady she loves to visit stop off there for a bit and walked home. she wantd to run off in a different direction but i put her back on track heading back home. I've never in my life dreamed of walking a cat and i've only ever seen it once...people think we're crazy but i'll do anything that'll help and keep her safe.

Cats that are used to outdoors, is it a hard task turning them to indoor cats? I've never experienced this before as all my cats were able to come and go. Can it be done....outdoor into indoor....? Any adivce?