my kitten has some kind of fits or seisures

Question
I have two male kittens that are now 10 months old that are littermates.They were both a bit run down when I got them, since the person was very occupied with moving and working overtime and didn't have much time to let them stay past 8 weeks old - I think they were barely 7 weeks old when I received them from her - the larger gold kitty was 2 pounds and fuzzy "runt" weighed only 1.2 pounds when I took them to the vets that night.  "Goldy" was doing OK later and is 8 pounds now. "Fuzzy" was given subcutaneous fluids and I took home medicines for them.  Since then they have blossomed into energetic  healthy (I hope) kitties. Fuzzy is about 7 pounds when he last got his kitten shots. Except I have seen now four episodes of some kind of fit that Fuzzy has.  Once when he was maybe three months old, and now three since January.  I hear a noise and find him scrambling, running around the floor, jerky like, mouth dripping white saliva and sort of chewing, making sort of a panting noise, and wild eyed like he was scared.  Then he finally stops, seems to slow down the jerking and settles down after a few minutes, acting tired and licking off his mouth. Then he is soon back to his normal self.  I have caught him and held him so he didn't run into things, with a towel gently, the last three times I saw this happening.  I have read some of the answers here and he doesn't become paralyzed or unconscious like the epilepsy type of stroke seems to suggest. He becomes very wide eyed and very fast moving.  Is this a seizure or something else?  I didn't have any time to take him to the vet when these happened since I was taking care of my mom at home, with the end stages of Alzheimers, and it took a lot of time.  Now since she has passed away, I am getting back together and have some more time to be helping my husband, who has recently been wheelchair bound and also needs a lot of help.  But I do intend to get Fuzzy to a vet soon.  He looks like a mix, with medium long hair, black and grey tabby, shorter legs, tufts on his ears and between his toes, and a fuzzy tail that just recently bushed out like a feather duster, and a face that is slightly like a Persian's squinty expression and a bit of the flattened nose. He was a little fuzzy ball when I got him, so the not so original name!  Could he have something that Persians tend to get? They are both loveable characters and don't look like brothers!  Should I let them do all these expensive tests I have read about, or will he just remain doing these occasional fits and maybe grow out of them and be OK otherwise?

Answer
Hi Diane.  I'm sorry to hear about your mother and your husband.  It must be very stressful trying to manage all of these things along with a kitty who seems to have special needs.

It does sound very much like your kitty is having seizures.  Many cats who experience seizure activity don't have generalized convulsions (tonic-clonic or grand mal seizures), and the symptoms you're describing - the chewing motions, the scrambling, the jerking - are all consistent with clonic seizures or maybe complex partial seizures.  There is no loss of consciousness with these types of seizures.  I'm glad you'll be getting him to a vet.  Try to keep a diary of the things that surround the episodes.  Does he get very sleepy afterwards?  Hungry?  Do they happen at a particular time of day?  These can help your vet determine if this is seizure activity.

It is generally recommended that at least some blood tests be run before deciding that a cat has epilepsy, because seizures can be caused by conditions like feline leukemia, toxoplasmosis and lead poisoning.  Your vet will probably also want to run a liver screening test, because the most common treatment for epilepsy, phenobarbital, should not be used in cats with liver disease.  You might want to forego a toxoplasmosis test if this is recommended, since the tests are not always accurate during all stages of infection, and the treatment is safe.  Instead, your vet can prescribe an antibiotic to treat for toxoplasmosis just in case this could be the cause of his seizures.  However, I would strongly recommend at least a leukemia test and a blood chemistry profile, which will give you his liver results along with kidney values.  

If all of these are negative, this is probably enough to say for now that he has idiopathic epilepsy.  If treatment for this doesn't help, then you would probably need to revisit the idea and consider further diagnostics, but some of them can get as in depth as a CT-scan or MRI to check for brain tumors.

The one other condition I could think of that might explain his behavior is Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome (FHS), which causes severe pain along the back and base of the tail.  It's believed to be linked to a seizure disorder and can lead to seizures itself.  It also is associated with anxiety.  Cats with the condition have episodes of pain that causes them to go dashing about the house madly and have some of the symptoms that you're describing, but this happens on a very frequent basis, several times a week or even daily in most cases.

In either case, I don't know Persians to be any more predisposed to the conditions than other breeds.

Best of luck!

Jessica