My Dog Just Had A Fit Or Seizure

[SueM]

Hijack away Harvey was having them a month apart, so I wont know if I am on the right track with the meds for at least another 2 weeks fingers crossed...

[CaseyKay]

Quick question:

Do you give their pills around when you feed them?

KC currently pills 7:30am/walk/breakfast at 8:30am.

Dinner: 5-6pm/walk/pills 7:30pm.

Wondering if it makes a difference and food and pill time should be closer together.

We are now 4 days no seizures. I had a worry-related meltdown yesterday even though KC was fine all weekend and spent Saturday hooning around our friends hill farm and sleeping very well all night, and yesterday hanging out with me and having a good beach walk with friends...poor husband but he was really good and says he will try and share the "worrying" !

[~Anne~]

Great to hear that Harvey is still going ok. A word of advice - expect it to take many, many months to settle and many, many months for the drugs to settle. Be patient.

CaseyKay, I always give Monte's meds with his food. He is obviously fed twice daily. Epi meds can make them fell queasy if not given with food.

Also, I am sure Staffy-lover said that for the first time she has her dogs epilepsy under control and one thing she had changed in her routine was feeding him with his meds after receiving this advice from the neuro. SL will be able to confirm this though.

Obviously with your Vets advice to keep him quiet he feels the seizures are brought on by activity???? I have never been told to restrict Monte's activity and I do not know of anyone else who is told this either.

We have just come back from the Vet after having Monte's trough levels checked on both the pheno and bromide. Hopefull it is all perfect as he certainly seems much improved lately and so I am hesitant to alter anything.

Edited January 15, 2007 by Puggles

[CaseyKay]

The last three seizures she had were during exercise but also during the hour before her pill was due and the levels were too low then (I think). The vet said we should keep her calm for a few days due to having a pretty bad seizure and then upping her dose. Especially around the time she was having them. Just to make sure. And then presume she is fine to resume all normal activity.

I don't think it would be possible to keep her quiet ALL the time! Last night we did some agility and she was fine and then she went chase-zoomies with a 5 month old blue heeler puppy. She doesn't usually like puppies because they tend to jump on her, but this one liked non-contact playing. She still has a lot of puppy like tendancies herself.

That is about what I was thinking with the meds/food timing. I will adjust things a bit so we have food & meds, then a hour rest before any walkies.

[Staffy-Lover]

hows all the epi pups going with this heat?

My boy had a seizure 4.30 thursday morning so i stayed home from work because of the hot hot hot day.

Thank goodness that the double dosing of meds stopped any clusters !

hope everyone else is well

[SueM]

Harvey is still fine, still no more seizures but his last one was the 26th of dec and he was having them a month apart so its a waiting game I suppose, he is much better since I have split the meds into 2 doses, I can not notice a difference in him he is always full of energy and tears around playing with my current foster dog...The only think I have noticed is an increased appetite....

[~Anne~]

We just had Montes results back in. His levels are perfectly in the middle for the Pheno and a little low for Bromide. But............ still no seizures or clusters and so we are leaving things as they are.

Varicool - the increased appetite can be fun to deal with. Pugs already have an enormous appetite and with the meds, Monte thinks of nothing else but food. He now suffers from pica where he will eat everything and everything..... rocks, gumnuts, grass, bits of fluff....... he literally squeals for his dinner and breakfast!

[CaseyKay]

KC is now 11 days seizure-free on her new dose of 37.5 mg. Yay! No seizures and no sign of any seizure type activity at all. She is more thirsty than hungry. Occasionally I have to let her out in the early morning to pee but I don't want to restrict her water access at all. We will get more bloods done in a month or so to see what her new levels are at the trough. We have adjusted her food/meds so she gets them the same time morning and night so that may have made a difference too.

It seems that summer has forgotten to visit new zealand this year, so we haven't had any heat related problems, couple of days ago we got to 28 but that is really unusual this year, it is struggling to get above 20. We go swimming every couple of days anyway. KCs eyesight is not flash so her swimming toy is a squishy yellow platypus about the size of her head... It sits above the water and god help any dog that looks sideways at it!

I have to go away for 5 days on Friday and hope Husband looks after my girl and remembers her meds on time (he will be getting text reminders!), I am taking my competition dog away for a training seminar so it will be nice for her to get one on one time.

[Staffy-Lover]

Puggles that is great news about the levels.. means u have room to move in future if you need it.

My boy will get his done in 2 weeks. Because we doubled dosed him at the last seizure the neuro said give it 1 -2 weeks to let the meds get back in order.

I'm glad Harvey and KC are all doing well - lets hope this weather cools down for the Aussie dogs because my boy is beat in this weather with his black coat. I have been leaving bags of ice around in the yard for him and he just lays on top of them

anyhow lets hope the seizures stay away for all !

[chky_cel]

We had a GSD who was diagnosed with seizures at 2 years. When we finally found the right levels of medications for her, she was seizure free until the passed away at 8 years (not due to the seizures).

They can have breakthrough seizures even when on meds but the vet always told me unless it was cyclical or there were 2 very close episodes then it wasn't something to panic about.

She was still very active and beautiful natured to the end

Hope all your dogs do well :rolleyes:

[Staffy-Lover]

GRRRRRRRRRRRR damn it

My boy had another seizure this morning... not good.. it looks like his good run has been broken.

It was a bit strange this time.. he came and woke me up and i thought he had to go to the loo so i let him outside and went for a drink. came back and there he was on the floor in a huddle (blindness), he had fallen of a very high step and i thought disaster had struck.. but thankgoodness he didn't hurt himself.

This sucks sometimes... it's so depressing when you finally get a run without seizures and then they come back again frequently.

fingers crossed that we have seen the last for a while.

[CaseyKay]

Staffy-lover. I hope your boy hasn't seized again since your last post on the 25th?

And Varicool, Harvey made it past the one month mark no seizures?

KC is now 3 weeks s-free since we upped her dose to 37.5mg and co-ordinated her meds and feeding. I'm very pleased with that. I also managed to be away from home for a week with my other dog and didn't worry too much about KC!

[Staffy-Lover]

Hi KC,

no thank goodness my boy has been good.. so fingers crossed it keeps going like this.

i am glad that kc has broken the cycle, now you need to give it a month or two and then go and get a blood works done to see his range. make sure you feed him with both doses.. i give weetbix with the morning ones and dinner with the others. and leave out lots of water.

good luck and i hope all the epi dogs are seizure free

[~Anne~]

Monte also broke. The troubling thing is that I don't know how many he had. We went out and were gone for around 2 hours. When I came back I noticed the tramp bed in the garage was pushed askew and this had pushed the little fence open.

The fence being open wasn't a prob but I realised that something had happended. At first I thought maybe they had been playing and then I looked at Monte and he was panting (it wasn't overly hot) and he had drool stains with dirt stuck to it on the side of his face. I found a drool patch next to the bed as well.

The boys can come and go into the garage through a dog door and they have a lounge and several diffierent beds in a sectioned off area in there and he obviously had at least one inside but I have no idea how many others.

How does everyone else cope with their dogs being on their own?? This is the first time I have evidence that Monte has had at least one seizure when I am not home. What happens if he clusters badly while I am not there?

Previous to this he has always had his seizures either at meal times, or more often, in the early hours of the morning.

[IrishCharm]

I haven't read the whole thread but is your baby staying cool?. Maybe the dreaded heat is getting to him.?

[Tunsafun Boxers]

Hi, Im not sure if this helps, but my mother's chihuahua started having seizures when she was 9 months old.

It was never diagnosed properly, or confirmed but they believed it to be epilepsy brought on by stress. usually a new environment would set her off, a trip in the car, or even us packing up to go to a dog show. On hot days it was worse. sometimes she'd have one fit and then not have another for weeks and months, other times (especially summer) she'd have a couple a week.

she'd have a fit where she would try to pull her back legs up over her head, we'd just sit with her and gently restrain her until it stopped. often the poor darling would wet herself. afterwards she was very quiet, a little groggy and would sleep for hours. we took her to the vets many times but they all said the same thing. she isn't in any pain, and when she wasn't fitting or recovering, her life was pretty fantastic.

she lived to the ripe old age of 22 ! and she lived through being desexed at 7 years old and then another operation for cancerous polups (sp?) when she was 16, against all the odds.

so sorry to hear about your baby. its not always a horrible outcome though, as mums little Jessica has shown me.

good luck with him, and hopefully the fits will stop real soon !

Jenna

PS. Jessica was bought as a show dog, and her only claim to fame was a reserve challenge. at the end of this show she had a fit and was retired from the show ring.

Edited January 31, 2007 by Tunsafun Boxers

[~Anne~]

I haven't read the whole thread but is your baby staying cool?. Maybe the dreaded heat is getting to him.?

Sorry, but do you mean that is might be the heat that is causing him to have seizures? It isn't the heat. He usually always has them in the ealry hours of the morning throughout the entire year, winter and summer. His cycles don't appear to be heat related. We thought at one stage they may be but this was ruled out about 18 months ago. He has been an epileptic for almost 4 years now.

[SueM]

Harvey is still fine nothing since the 26th of dec def not heat related he has had both of them when its been quite cool, he got promoted to class 3 at dog obedience last night and should be trialing in around 6 months He is going well on his meds def better since I split them into 2 doses morning and night Both his seizures that I have witnessed one was when I was driving him to dog obedience a cool night and the other when I had another wee dog here and they were playing...

Edited February 1, 2007 by varicool

[~Anne~]

Woohooo Harvey. That is great that he has remained seizure free and I bet a relief for you too.

[CaseyKay]

How does everyone else cope with their dogs being on their own?? This is the first time I have evidence that Monte has had at least one seizure when I am not home. What happens if he clusters badly while I am not there?

Previous to this he has always had his seizures either at meal times, or more often, in the early hours of the morning.

Clustering when alone is something I worry about too. When she has clustered badly KC has a lot of seizures and they get closer together until stopped with valium. Both times she clustered she was not on Pb however, (the first time in 2004, and again after a 2 year med-free streak late last year). SO FAR (fingers crossed) the seizures while on Pb have been singles.

So when my husband said in December last year "hey I have a good promotion opportunity at work but it means going on afternoon shift 3pm to 11pm, what do you think?", I said "excellent"!! So KC is only alone for around 2 hours a day weekdays and not at all on weekends. Especially over Xmas/early Jan when she was still having some seizures and we were adjusting her meds. It was really important to me to know exactly how many she was having. Also with the different hours we have options of meds being given every 8 hours. It was such a relief to me that my husbands hours changed. I'm out three nights per week during doggy club things anyway.

Puggles, you said could tell when you came home he had had a seizure...I presume it was a grand mal. Are his clusters always grand mals? Does he always drool etc? KC both foams and urinates on herself so unless it was a very mild seizure I think we would know if she had one. I also worry she will run into the fence during the blind/frantic phase of post-ictal if we are not there. They are left in fenced in dog run about 20x 20m in the backyard if we go out and they are not with us. If husband is not home and she has had a seizure that night or morning I leave her in her crate. This wouldn't be longer than 4 hours, as I am only 10 minutes away and can go home at lunchtime etc to let her out. In winter she will often come to work and stay in the car, get 2 short breaks and a longer walk at lunchtime. I know I am lucky...but I am still a major worrier! I hope Monte did not have any more.