Seizures

[Tim'sMum]

Do the seizures happen when your dog has just woken up or is excited?

No. They happen out of the blue, ussually when she is relaxing.

So just as she is starting to doze off perhaps? That is quite a common time for seizures as the brain waves change.

As Rappie suggested...if there is no apparent metabolic cause (diabetes, kidney disease etc..) that may be treated with other medication, it is certainly worthwhile considering anti-convulsant medication. You should certainly ask the vet to discuss it.

[haven]

Yes, I had exactly this problem with my GSD Loki and it wasn't a happy ending I'm afraid. The Vet suggested we could do and MRI or some kind of brain scan and then potentially operate, but knowing the stress just the tests would cause and his age I decided against it. I had noticed a decline in his quality of life, he started to return to previously higher levels of anxiety than he had shown in a long time and became generally unhappy to be anywhere but in his crate. He was medicated but within a short time (I can't recall exactly but it was a matter of months at the most) his seizures increased and worsened until one night he just had a really bad seizure and continued to have them closer and closer together until he was virtually convulsing the whole time. He was bleeding from biting his tongue and almost took my finger off when I stupidly tried to prise his mouth open to give him an anti-convulsant (he had no control over his jaw and it closed like a vice when I stuck my hand in to try and give him the tablet. He seemed completely unaware of where he was, who I was and was totally non responsive to me. I got him into his crate but he couldn't move but to convulse every few minutes, moaning and crying. At that point I called the only after hours Vet I could find and had them come out to euthanise him. I wish I had made the decision to euthanaise him sooner, although there was no way to tell how long he could have gone with the condition. He had such a tough life though and the last thing I wanted in the world for him was to have such a difficult and distressing passing, I couldn't even comfort him because I don't think he even recognised me in the end

[frufru]

Haven, hugs to you what a horrible way for your beautiful Loki to pass - perhaps there is some comfort in the fact that Loki probably wasn't aware of what was happening to him - my gran had siezures towards the end of her life and would wake up in hospital feeling fine and say - "what am I doing here?" and would have no memory of the seizure.

Edited February 17, 2011 by frufru