This morning at around 5am my 1 year old dog had a sudden seizure, followed by around 5 more in the time between then and when we arrived at the emergency vet. They said he probably has epilepsy and he is staying overnight – the drugs they gave weren’t strong enough to stop the fits so he basically had to be knocked out.
I cannot see him until tomorrow and they warned me of brain damage. I am very scared and missing him a lot. A few months ago he had a tiny seizure but it was written off and he was back to normal within the hour, nothing to this extreme.
Does anybody have any personal experiences with dog epilepsy/seizures? He’s so little still and this can’t be the end? Thanks!
Is there any chance he could have gotten into anything around the house or out like poisons, gum, cleaners, pesticides, etc?
Probably not, no signs of anything being broken into and he was completely fine going to sleep and all of yesterday, just suddenly this morning.
My little man Rambo is a seizure dog for the last couple years. Although perhaps not as extreme as most cases. I have kinda gotten used to them. It’s always scary but it’s gotten to the point that both he and I know when he will have one. Usually he’s irratable and wants to be alone, and Rocky his brother starts acting ‘odd’ in a sense. (and bless Rocky, he’ll always stay by Rambos side when he seizes) It’s always a half hourish process. He shows the warning signs and I give him a vallium, if it’s something where the vallium is given a little later then we will sit down in a quiet dark room and let the vallium work its way through and let him work his seizure through. The main thing is to talk to your doggo. It’s not really for them but for you to keep calm, they will go unconscious depending on the severity of the seizure so having a calm parent and calm household when coming back out helps. (easier said then done, I used to panic all the time as my little man who is only 4kg would come to me limping about to seize wanting me to fix it and it breaks my heart) But Rambo always bounces back when he’s gone through his seizure. Generally a happy chappy, but that could be to that he has learnt that once he has a seizure he gets a Schmacko for being a brave boy.
I can’t say what’s causing them for your sweet doggo but for me I was told he has them and he is fine as we haven’t found anything to cause them and so it’s a glitch in his brain.
Seizures are scary but manageable. Twice a month is relatively good in a sense. Rambo used to have them that frequently (his first one was 5 in a row, scariest night if my life racing him to the vet) but he has semi grown out of it. He’s down to a seizure every couple months or more or if he’s had a big day of play or new things get introduced. (we had 2 doggos visit for a night and I think a mix between play and new beings in the house put him over, hence why he had a seizure that night.)
I have discussed phenobarb with the vet, but currently due to the fact his seizures aren’t so frequent, we have decided for now not to put him on it as it is a life long commitment that has damaging side effects to their kidneys. Plus once started you can’t stop or they’ll seize. I’m not saying to go off phenobarb definitely don’t do that. If Rambo had more frequent seizures I’d put him on phenobarb. Currently he is on vallium which relaxes the muscles and body. If taken before the seizure it prevents it.
I’m hoping this makes sense and helps. I do apologise it’s midnight lol
So my Jinx has had epilepsy for years now, he had it when we got him at 3years and that was…oh gosh I just realized I have no idea how old he is…at least 10 I’m sure.
When we got him we were told that if he didn’t take his pills he’d have seizures once a week, with meds they were every three weeks or so.
My school had just started on our seizures section at the time and had just got to the breakthrough seizures possibly being triggered. so I started a diary for Jinx.
I wrote down what he ate and anything odd that happened to him every day, and when he had his seizures. That’s how I found out that anytime he ate beef he would seize within 24 hours. We cut out beef and Jinx seizes once every 9 months or so as long as he has his pills.
I also used to work with an old vet, he was at the convention when Hills first announced z/d food(really groundbreaking for allergies, first of it’s kind). Apparently the presentation included the fact that during the final stage of testing for the food they had a bunch of vets nominate their worse food allergy patients and got all their owners to agree to do a food trial. Of those animals, 12 were also epileptics as well as having allergies. Of those 12, 8 reported a decrease in frequency and duration of seizures while on the food. So the presenter suggested that vets try it off label for seizure patients, since it couldn’t hurt and their had been some human epilepsy studies that found a link between epilepsy and allergies.
After that the vet suggested it for all his epileptics, he had a 80% success rate on it. So maybe a hydrolyzed protein or limited ingredient diet will help. It can’t hurt.