Hi - we have a 16 year old cat that went blind when he was 7 but did not seem to faze him much. About 5 months ago he started walking in circles in varying degrees and speeds, sometimes so fast I wondered how he stayed on his feet. No inner ear problems, probably some type of brain tumor or other nuerological problem. Suggested course of action by the vet would start at over $2000 with no guarantees that anything could be determined or even treated. Vet suggested start with prednisone for possible tumor and if that didn't work switching to an anti seizure medicine. ( thought if not a tumor, a stoke, or inner ear problem)
Cat was at the point that about every 2 weeks, he would have a day where he was very lethargic, sleep for 18-24 hours straight and have no energy. You could also see this coming on about a day in advance. 1st 7 days on the pred he totally stopped circling and improved dramatically, and then as we backed him off the dose the circling started to return with days of havy and light circling. We also noticed that if we woke him up to feed hinm or startled him, the circling was always worse as oppsed to letting him get up on is own.
After about 3 months of every other day with a 1/2 tablet of pred, when I noticed him circling more or appearing to have another bout coming on, I'd give him an extra dose on the day we were skipping. After giving him pred for 4 months we returned to the vet to seek his opinion on continuing the pred 1/2 tablet, once a day, instead of every other day - which seemed to be the ideal dose. So far, the cat has improved daily and is actually almost back to normal - with minimal circling. I don't know how long this will last but he never appeared to be in any pain and had adapted quite well to going blind 9 years ago (he still jumped up on furniture and shelves, and chased his brothers) and appears to be adapting to this as well- so the vet seems to be pleased with the results so far.
