Maybe it is the heat. You know how you get that dead sleep. Maybe keep him
in a bit more until he seems perkier.

This is very good to know. Thanks a lot for sharing it!

He's been acting completely normal since the last incident, but I'm still
going to speak with a vet or three.

You're right about Phenobarbitol being a very old drug, a very effective one,
and also a very inexpensive one compared to the new magic wonder-cures like
neurontin, dilantin, and a couple more I can't recall the names of right
offhand.
It worked marvelously on our dachshund that had seizures.
Sherry

Depending on your region, MRIs may have come down in price.  They are
immensely better than regular X-rays in detecting soft tissue lesions,
as in the brain.  

Some human hospitals will do off-hours veterinary MRIs. An extreme case
is in Canada, where the relevant ministry sets a fixed amount they will
pay the hospital for MRI services. So, even while humans wait, the
hospital may do veterinary MRIs once they've reached their compensable
limit for humans.

It would be unusual for a plain X-ray to confirm a brain lesion, unless
there were bone involved. X-rays can be improved by injecting dye, but
that usually involves the riskier procedure of threading a catheter into
the brain.

Phenobarbital is indeed a useful drug for many epilepsies, but not all.
Its major side effect is sedation. It's not that much, if at all,
cheaper than other anticonvulsants that have gone generic, such as
Dilantin (generically phenytoin) or Tegritol (generically
carbemazapine). In humans, these are not necessarily the first choice
for all epilepsies, but are very frequently used.

There is a saying in medicine that when you hear hoofbeats, the wise
money says horses, not zebras. There is another saying that all cases
solved by neurologists are zebras.

How old is Abelard?  Could he have a hypothyroid?
Christine

I haven't heard of it either, but I had never heard of temporary
blindness before Charky (RB) experienced it.

Joy

P.S. I can't have a screen door, as the wood around the outer door frame has
rotted away and won't hold anything.

A circulating fan can help quite a bit.  Better he be "miserable" than
squashed.  MLB

  No, it doesn't sound like coma, especially at this age and size.
At least, not a diabetic coma.   Our Hobo *is* diabetic and will go
into a similar deep sleep occasionally.  No noise, touching, or even
food under his nose will wake him.  It's alarming and I was frantic
the first time he did this, but his diabetes is currently under
control and he had exhibited no symptoms of reaching the point of
being in a coma.   So we let him sleep it off and he's just fine.

I hope you can soon learn why Abelard has this problem; I know it
must be disturbing to you and I hope he'll stop pronto.

   Jeanne

It may not be a full-bore coma, but some type of comatose situation.
It's a disconnect. Like the words pre-syncope. Don't get hung upon on
the words. There are degrees of fainting, ven half-fainting, and
disorientation and getting slightly comatose to completely unable to
be awakened.

The situation is risky, albeit dangerous. It's like falling asleep at
the wheel while driving a car. I have had these arguments with
"doctors" in quotes because of their stupidity and rigid definitions.

Something is seriously or appears seriously out of whack. The
vibrations are definitely to my layman's point of view a very bad sign
of something not working correctly, whether it's a slight seizure to a
slight state of shock to a slight coma or comatose or coma-type.

In any case, do get back and let us know what you found out.
I assume you'll have to get a blood panel and maybe even an x-ray of
the brain to rule out lesions which can cause these problems, like
getting hit in the head when he was born because he sounds a bit like
the runt of the litter.

Hopefully it turns out to be trivial, but it's much safer to start
with assuming something is seriously out of whack. I find this true
for myself and for all living creatures.

This is good post and your previous post in which you replied to me
was superb. and of course that is the one which is not showing up in
the Google archives. Figures.

In any case, you are right. X-rays show bone damage whereas MRI's will
show soft tissue lesions. In my case, there apparently was bone damage
which was pressing on the optic nerve. Hence the cat was blind in one
eye.

You were right about the horses and zebras. But the local vets and
even the vet students would not pay attention to me as I pointed out
that the cat was blind in one eye. It was so obvious, as seeing and
hearing the horses. The visiting vet from Boston, the professor of
neurology, had to point out to the well-fed and quite incompetent
future vets that the cat was blind in one eye and that was the clue to
where damage could be found in the brain.

To this day I cannot understand how any vet or vet student could be so
plain dumb and useless. It is truly terrifying. They just would not
listen as I patiently explained the reason the cat walked into walls
on the left is because she could not see. And this was not even my cat
and I could see that. At that time, I did not have any pets and am not
sure why I persisted in finding out what the answer was, going through
many local vets. The vets were not that expensive back then and I had
the time, obviously, and the money from somewhere. I would ask, who is
the best vet in the city, and go there and be quite disappointed. The
local ones I saw failed, some completely, some halfway, but none could
come up with the correct answer - phenobarbital for seizures in a
feline. Dumb and more dumb.

But your comments were astute. Very perceptive.

One warning, the vet school did not charge me for the professor of
neurology. But be careful. I could tell he half-heartedly asked me if
they, the school, could do brain surgery on the cat. I read between
the lines. I refused. There was somewhat a lack of enthusiasm when he
was asking me and I think it was because those years of students in
the world-famous vet school were not up to snuff. They were admitting
students not really capable of good veterinary practice.

But brain surgery on a small cat? The students were dumb and rude in
refusing to listen to me. Can you see the poor cat just plain wasting
away on the operating table while these morons had to be shown where
the optic nerve was and so forth? I felt the cat deserved to live
rather than die for the benefit of these useless students. Apparently
I was right. An associate had his pet die in a similar situation and
deduced that the extra time spent on the operating table for the
benefit of the future vets' show and tell is what did his beloved pet
in.