my friend has a lovely kitten, a singleton from their queen, and she is about 6 weeks old now & until yesterday, 100% fit & well apparently. yesterday she went "comatose" (her description) 3 times in 5 minutes & each time her eyes rolled back & she was limp. my friend shook her to bring her around. She went to vets who says she may be hydracephalus has anyone heard of this in a kitten before? Or she may have hypoglycaemia (it happened after eating) or she may be developing epilepsy. its very hard for my friend as they live in a rural area of a poorer european country & their vets are not quite so clued up as ours & she adores this kitten & would do anything to help her. Her vet says next time it happens, to do nothing & see what happens not helped by the fact her husband is out of the country all week & she is totally alone.  Anyone any ideas or seen anything similar?

A hydrocephalus kitten would usually look obvious -big domed head looking unusual. To be honest I would not have expected one to live for 6 weeks although it can happen, and yes, that could cause fits. Do you know if the mother is vaccinated, is she an indoors or outdoors cat, has she been blood tested for things like Felina leukaemia etc? The father? It could be a lot of dfferent things but my first thoght would be Feline Enteritis or Bordetella -or the kitten may have been born with a bad heart. But yes it could be epilespy too.Can you ask her if the kitten has a temperature and what the TONGUE looks like, does it look normal or does it have ulcers on it?

that sounds like how Luckys kittens went, she had 6 apparently healthy kittens, 1 by 1 they died, the last one (kitkat) was taken to the vets along with the last kitten that had died kiikat to have a check and the other little one to a post mortem, the post mortem came back inconclusive, but whilst in the waiting room kitkat collapsed in the receptionists arms, then again in the nurses, the vet couldnt give him anything but said he wouldnt normally suggest it but to take kitkat away from his mum and hand rear him, we didnt hold much hope for him and never intended to name him but he was called kitkat when it came to feeding and it stuck. the vet did however think that it was all possibility that the kittens were suffering from fading kitten syndrome, as kitkat had the symptoms for it.
helpful that all makes sense and isnt too much gibberish :)

tanya

goldmali......normal temperature, normal tongue, no ulcers, no oversized head........ re:vaccinations, well tbh they dont really have them where they live....the father, well i doubt that either!!!....she says its definitely going into a coma type collapse rather than fitting  any more ideas?

Do cats suffer from narcolepsy, Goldmali?  I know it occurs in dogs particularly in certain breeds, dachshunds for instance, I believe.  Other than that long shot it sounds like more of a heart condition to me.  Was that checked out by the vet do you know Sam?
Just found this.  Yes it does occur in cats but it seems such a long shot and the diagnosis seems a bit high tech :(

I must admit I've never heard of it before.

Very strange Sam but it could still be epilepsy -what about the heart?