"drugged" on happiness?

[losna]

Sinbad is a very social cat. He cries if he's alone for too long, and just generally likes to be in people's company, even if it's just sitting without attention. His favorite times of day are the mornings when my husband works out and i sit and leer at him :lol3: and the evenings when we sit in the living room and watch tv or play games or something. Sometimes Sinbad will even try to herd us into the living room when he wants family time. :lol3:

But last night he did something very bizarre.

My husband put on a dvd i had no interest in. Normally when he does that, i just leave and go play video games. But this time i didn't, rather than leaving i sprawled on the floor and started waving Sinbad's favorite wand toy around.

And boy, was Sinbad happy! He was running, jumping, chasing that thing around and purring like a little rocket engine.

But after a while, his movements started to slow. Not from exhaustion, it seemed more like he was becoming drugged. His eyes were even glazing, it was very odd. Then, finally, he just... fell over. He sprawled on his back with his paws in the air like a dead cat, his mouth was opened slightly in a huge grin, tongue dangling out, and his eyes remained open, but they were glazed and that membrane was halfway out.

It seriously looked like he was in a complete drugged stupor. Deliriously happy to the point of absolute euphoria.

I've never seen anything like that before. Is it normal? Something we should be concerned about? Or was he really just that happy that he needed time out to enjoy his happiness?

(Please pardon any text oddities, I'm on my cell phone so writing is abit dicey.)

 

[red top rescue]

That sounds suspiciously like it could be a neurological problem, but I'm not a vet.  If I were you, I would at least mention it to my vet, especially if you can try it a few more times and the same thing happens.

 

[Willowy]

How long did he stay like that? Was he responsive or really out of it? Did he drool at all? What did he do after he came out of that episode? How old is he? It sort of sounds like a hypoglycemic episode but it could be something else. If he does it again I'd definitely get him in to see the vet.

 

[losna]

He was like that for a few minutes, I'm not sure how long. He jumped up when my husband moved though, ready to start playing again as though nothing had happened.

We did take him in to the vet today, for something else. She didn't seem concerned by a description of this, though. So I guess it was just an oddity? 

Either that or she was too distracted by having to give him an enema. Poor Sinbad was not happy.

 

 

[misterwhiskers]

Why did he need the enema? Might it be related?

 

[losna]

@misterwhiskers  Sinbad is a Creature of Order. He likes his schedules! Every morning we wake up at 5:30, go down stairs for exercise time, eat breakfast, daddy leaves, etc etc. There is a time and a place for everything, and he gets very stressed if things vary too much. While it's annoying on weekends on holidays, he has saved our butts a few times! He's actually very cute, he has learned what all the various beeps and alarms throughout the day mean and the ones that herald playtime (the alarm at the end of my husband's exercise routine as my husband plays with him after working out) or food (the beep of the oven preheating as I cook dinner) get him so excited. He'll literally let out this excited happy stream of sounds at every one of the beeps during the day that herald food or play - and if for some reason any of the beeps don't sound, he'll come get one of us to remind us that there should be an event happening. 

We just had 2 weeks of my husband working split shifts due to a project at work, which completely disrupted our lives, let alone the schedule. 

Sinbad stressed out so much that he groomed several large patches of skin raw and bloody and had a bout of constipation so bad that he was crying in pain. It was bad enough that the vet wanted us to leave him there overnight, but I knew that would just terrify the little guy. So she gave him an enema, told us what to watch out for, warned us that he was likely to make a huge mess when the enema had its effect, instructed us to give them periodic updates, and warned that we may need to bring him back today if he hasn't improved. (He seems to have, I'm waiting for his morning litter box visit to be sure though.)

Could it be possible that the "euphoria" was another stress response?

 

[misterwhiskers]

For some reason, I'm associating fainting with enemas in humans...

Yes--looked it up. It can cause a vagus nerve problem, resulting in fainting from sudden drop in blood pressure...

I wonder if that's what happened to your cat?

 

[losna]

The fainting happened before his enema. 

Tuesday night is when we were all hanging out and he did the euphoria thing. Then I went down to clean his litterbox. He followed me down and tried to give me "presents" the way he usually does. I guess he thinks I think his stool is awesome because I take it away every day. He comes down when I clean it to leave some fresh ones for me. 

 I noticed he was straining, and left fewer than usual. I was a little concerned, but not overly so because it was a different time of day than I normally clean it - I thought it was just him trying to poop for mommy even though he didn't have to go. 

Wednesday he didn't go at all. Wednesday night he started crying in pain when trying to use it, but it was too late to call a vet. Thursday (yesterday) morning he was still crying, so we called them and they took us in as early as they could. It was serious enough that she wanted to keep him at the clinic, but he was really scared, and has separation issues when he's apart from me, so I was unwilling to leave him unless it was really necessary. 

In my horribly uneducated opinion, it seems like if the two events are related, it would only be a similar root cause - how stressed he's been. But I really am still new to having cats (we've had Sinbad and Tempest for 7 months now and they are my first cats), so I could be entirely wrong on that. 

The vet agreed that the cause of his constipation was stress, and pretty much ignored my querying about the euphoria as unimportant. So maybe it was nothing? I'm the first to admit that I'm worried about him right now and am hyper aware of every behavior oddity. He started licking bloody holes into his skin last week, and when he does that I start worrying about him. Though at this point we don't take him in for that anymore, he does that when he gets stressed out so we already know generally what to do about it.

 

[misterwhiskers]

Sounds like he's doing ok!! Maybe the stress had him sleeping less? And he just zonked out? Either way glad he's ok.