Update on our cat, Budley -- he's getting better! THIAMINE!!

[Traveler]

I've posted before about our cat Budley and his current health struggles with seizures. It now appears his problem was not epilepsy or brain tumor causing seizures after all. A couple of months ago, back in June, my daughter ran across a medical article about 2 cats that presented with seizures where seizure medicine really didn't resolve symptoms and MRIs showed no indication of epilepsy. Turns out both were seizing because of thiamine deficiency. One had been eating old stale kibble and the other raw fish (depletes thiamine). Seizures and circling are a symptom of thiamine deficiency. They were treated with therapeutic doses of thiamine first intravenously and then subcutaneously and then at home and they recovered.

So I ordered some sublingual thiamine 100mg tablets that we dissolved in water to dispense 50mg twice a day with an oral doser. I figured if it didn't help, it couldn't hurt. He started improving a bit. I dropped the GABA to see if that helped some of the lethargy and weakness because GABA has a sedating effect. And we slowly started dropping his phenobarbital dose. We started at 2 1/2 tablets a day (1 1/4 every 12 hours), we are down to 1 3/4 tablets a day (1 tablet and then 3/4 tablet 12 hours later). We will be at that does for another week and then we'll drop it another 1/4 tablet to 3/4 tablet twice a day.

We worked up to 75mg thiamine twice a day too, which is where we've been and probably will stay for the rest of the month and then drop down. He's not circling as much nor does he stare into the distance or appear to get disoriented or lost. No signs of seizures either (aka absence seizures).

We think he picked up a stomach virus from hubs (hubs was sick first) last week so he had a bout of not eating and loose stools and diarrhea and lost about 8 ounces but he's feeling better and his appetite has come back. We're still dealing with what my daughter calls 'wet farts', lol so he's still getting the herbal antibacterial remedy we gave him initially to get over his c. perferenges infection. We're trying to figure out if the taurine we're giving him is too much and cause of it or he's still dealing with the stomach bug.

It turns out there are antibiotics that block thiamine absorption and can actually cause thiamine deficiency. The cephalosporin convenia long action injection and the metronidazole are two that do. Those were the two antibiotics that he was given right before he started his seizures. He got the shot about three weeks beforehand for a UTI but the antibiotic stays in the body upt to 3 months. Then we found out about the C. perferneges. He had 2 doses of the metronidazole and he spent the next day seizing. I thought he was dying. I don't think many doctors (for animals or humans) know about this connection between thiamine and these antibiotics.

And speaking of thiamine, turns out it can be helpful in a lot of maladies like ME/CFS (chronic fatigue), POTS (post orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and even long covid symptoms.