Mini Stroke? Seizure? Temporary Paralysis?

[sazmatazz]

Hi everyone.

We had a really stressful day yesterday. When we got up at about 10am and uncovered Mabel, she was unable to stand or walk. She seemed to have her top half twisted and the right side of her face almost flat on the floor, leaning right to one side and not able to right herself.
As you can imagine we were absolutely shocked and in floods of tears. We thought she had either injured her spine (god knows how) or that she'd had a stroke. Straight away we booked her in for an emergency vet appointment which we luckily managed to get for 25 minutes time. We placed her in her travel box and she was just lying very still on her side looking shocked. We really thought we wouldn't be bringing her home with us.

She gradually started to move around when we were on the car journey to the vets, by the time we got there she appeared to be sitting normally and was eating her hay.
The vet was very thorough in checking her over and said he couldn't see anything wrong with her, he even tipped her over onto each side to check her reflexes etc.
He confirmed that she is blind (or may only have very little sight in one of her eyes) however we have suspected this for quite a while now.

The vet offered a number of possible explanations including a stroke, some sort of infection in the brain (more commonly seem in rabbits), inhalation or ingestion of something causing toxicity or some type of seizure. However because she seemed normal at the time of the appointment he said a seizure was the most likely thing to have happened, especially as her living conditions and situation don't lend themselves to lead poisoning or inhalation of gas/carbon monoxide etc. He did ask if we'd changed any of her fresh food and to ensure we wash it thoroughly in case of anything like pesticides but was unsure how likely this is, as well as ensuring any dry food or hay doesn't contain any damp or mould.
We have been advised to keep a close eye on her and take her back to the vet for observation if anything else occurs.

She seems her normal self today and has been squeaking for food, eating, drinking and pooping normally.
Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? We are quite traumatised after yesterday's experience, hopefully Mabel doesn't remember.

 

[Wiebke]

I am very sorry! It is usually near impossible to find the cause of something like this without lots of lab tests or being able to ask the patient.

If it was a stroke, there is a certain risk that she may have another one in the near future; just so you can brace yourself for that case. Hopefully, it was just a one-off.

 

[sazmatazz]

I am very sorry! It is usually near impossible to find the cause of something like this without lots of lab tests or being able to ask the patient.

If it was a stroke, there is a certain risk that she may have another one in the near future; just so you can brace yourself for that case. Hopefully, it was just a one-off.

Yeah the vet said they can do blood tests etc but wouldn't usually do that unless it happened again or some symptoms persisted in some way. We felt really reassured by what the vet said, as he has kept guinea pigs and said that some of his had lived to be 10 and 12 - he actually seemed to care about piggies and offer as much of a possible explanation as he could give. (We have encountered some VERY thoughtless and ignorant vets in the past who didn't seem to care about small animals at all)

We are just hoping that nothing else occurs - obviously we can't watch her all the time and we have no idea how long she was having her first strange episode before we found her. Had it been any other day we may not have ever known it had happened as she was back to normal within an hour of us finding her. The vet said she had fresh food in her mouth so she had eaten relatively recently before it happened.

Poor Mabel, I feel so upset for her as she looked really frightened.

 

[jenny57]

Glad to know that Mabel was soon back to her old self, but it is horrible for us to have to watch them struggling. Fingers crossed it was a one off. Best wishes to you and Mabel x

 

[Freela]

I had a pet mouse as a child with an apparent seizure disorder... she had multiple spells where she would appear to be paralyzed (a couple of times we thought she had died, as she was stiff and her body temperature would drop.) She would gradually rally and return to normal. We asked the vet and he suspected seizures, but no testing was ever done (as she was a mouse, I can imagine finding a vein for blood work would have been extremely difficult, plus this was about twenty years ago!) She did live a normal life span, but had episodic seizures her whole life. No real advice to give, and my guinea pigs have never presented with it, but it does sound a bit similar.

 

[NASH]

We had a little girl called Lucy who had a similar episode, she had a major head tilt and wasn't able to walk. By the time we had rushed her to the vet she was starting to become normal again. It was very peculiar and no cause was found. The good news is she never suffered another episode. I have no advice only good wishes and the hope that like Lucy, Mabel also never has this again.