Amazing results using just food for kitten with seizures

[Rhiannon12866]

I'm posting this for a new member looking for feedback:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=881662

Amazing results using just food for kitten with seizures

Hello - just found this place because there were old posts about seizures in kittens. If anyone knows a more appropriate place to post this info please let me know.

We also just found a black kitten three evenings ago, but in a wood pile on our property. She's probably around 4-weeks old and in great shape. I'm more of a dog person because I have too many lizards, birds, rabbits, and chickens around to trust a cat and I certainly don't want wild cats running around our property. Well, it took about 10 minutes to calm the wildness away and then my 7-year old daughter fell in love with her.

I happen to have had kitten formula because of a recent issue with a baby bunny so I tried to give her some formula that evening. Didn't have much luck and she slept peacefully next to my daughter. The next day we tried a grain free wet food mixed with formula and she took some and that evening gave her more plus about an ounce of formula. She had what looked like a mild seizure a short time after and my daughter started tearing up when she saw the concern in my eyes. That night was awful as the kitten had at least 4 serious seizures lasting about 45 sec to a little over a minute (she meowed/screamed loudly each time at the start) and her box was a mess in the morning.

I'm a biologist so I did some research. Lots of info for seizure with everyone giving drugs as the cure. I am NOT going to give phenobarbital to this cat for the rest of its life. I suspected something in the food or lack of nutrient was the cause because of the peaceful first evening we had. With a little more digging found wonderful case where woman changed diet and added fats/oils (e.g., coconut oil/bacon grease) to help support brain function (also found supporting data on the importance of fats for those with underlying seizure disorders).

The second day we used a grain free hard food (higher protein and fat content than wet food) soaked to mush with just water. I went to work, when I came back family reported just one mild seizure. That evening we added a generous amount of coconut oil to the water/food mush (NOTE: NO kitten formula at all for over 16 hrs now). This morning we are happy to report that it looks like NO seizures occurred. I heard nothing, there was no mess everywhere, my daughter slept next to her and wasn't woken up, and the kitten is calm and alert.

Could it be so simple? I am not going to test my hypothesis that it was the food or formula combo because I don't have the heart to put the kitten back on it. And maybe this is a spurious correlation and tonight will be hell again. The problem is there are no studies out there testing diet against the different types of seizure issues in pets (and why when the drug companies do not want to support the studies). However, surely there are families out there that have litters of kittens with seizure issues (many are genetic and would be easy to get litters for study purposes) and some cat group that would stand behind such a study or someone with the funding to do so? I certainly can assist with proper scientific methodology as that is one of my strengths. Wouldn't it be something if we could discover that one of the main culprits is associated with food and a properly designed diet could get rid of the issue with NO DRUGS? Please pass on this info to whomever can help and to whomever needs the info for their own pet with seizure problems. I'm not saying its a cure but surely it is worth a try. Thanks!