Canine epilepsy advice needed

Paul Davidson

Paul Davidson

Joined
Apr 3, 1999
Messages
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My dog Seamus (seen in my avatar) has been diagnosed with Canine Epilepsy. He will be two years old in December and started having seizures in August (though he may have had a petit mal in July). The first grand mal was relatively minor and was in the middle of August. He had another grand mal towards the end of August. We did a bunch of blood work, which all came back normal, and started keeping a seizure log after the first one but they didn't want to say he had epilepsy until we observed him a while more since there could be other issues possibly. In my heart I had accepted that he probably had epilepsy but was just hoping that he would have a very mild case that wouldn't require medication.

Almost a month went by and my wife and I were starting to feel good that it had been so long since the last seizure. Then Sunday he started having cluster seizures. We had been gone all day doing a craft show and he started around 9:30 at night. He had 3 grand mal over the next three hours that got closer together, longer, and more severe. He probably had numerous petit mal seizures in the mean time that I didn't recognize for what they were. After the third one we rushed him to the emergency vet clinic which is close by luckily. He had a definite petit mal seizure in the car on the way there. The immediately took him back and put an IV in his leg in case they had to admin valium. After explaining the options to us we gave them permission to give him a loading dose of liquid Penobarbital. The vet told us that if the cluster had started while we were gone he may have been dead by the time we got home.

They observed him the rest of the night. At 8:00 am the next morning we went and paid the very high bill and took him to our regular vet where he was observed until 7:00 pm and given another loading dose of Phenobarbital. Our vet told us more about Phenobarbital, the fact that it treats the seizures well but can cause liver damage. We have now changed his food to a higher grade food, and dog bicuits that have fewer preservatives and no BHA or BHT. We are giving him Phenobarbital twice a day orally.

If you have made it this far, what I need is any advice from people on here that might be vets, or have dogs with canine epilepsy. Second opinions never hurt.

Also, if your dog every has seizures or acts funny (getting glassy eyed for a while, twitching lips, looking up for a while for no reason please take your dog to a vet. Epilepsy can be very damaging to the brain if untreated. Our vet said a woman brought her dog in after it had been having grand mal seizures every day for over a year.

I had never heard of canine epilepsy but it is more common than I thought, and more common in some breeds. Labs and shepherds are two breeds that have a higher incidince and those are two breeds that we think Seamus has in him.

Thanks for reading this very long post.
 
My Cat has the same problem but is doing well with no meds.
my vet did not want to use any med's on her cant remember
why. She started haveing them when she was a little more that
a kitten, They were very frequent when she was young but
she may have one every other month now. Just watch him or her
if you can so as not to let him/her hurt them selfs.

Keep your chin up if my little cat can get through them your
big macho dog can.. Good luck

Zoo
 
We had a miniature poodle (about twenty pounds) with epilepsy. She started on two phenobarb/dilantin per day, but that left her like a zombie. The doc stepped her down to one a day and that's what she took for most of her life.

She had grand mal seizures of a duration that made the vet's mouth drop the first time he asked me, "How long do the seizures last?" and I told him -maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. He said he'd expected one or two minutes at most.

She lived seventeen years as a completely normal dog, the best I ever had, until my current partner.

Even on the meds, she still had the occasional seizure, but it was basically a non-issue. It became just a chronic condition that she lived with, never slowed her a step and all it meant to us was that she got a pill with her dinner.

Good luck to you.
 
I'm very sorry to hear about your dog. We know three people that have eplieptic dogs. One is an aussie shepard and the owners did two things, treat for cat infection (the dog had seizures after dining from a litter box ) and then switched to a non preservative, non grain based food.

The other two used phenobarb, besides the mentioned side effects it can keep a dogs back legs from working if the dose is to high.

It can be very common, 2 years old is about when problems start to show. If you got your dog from a breeder, you should ask for a full and total refund. No ethical breeder would knowingly perpetuate a line with seizures, but plenty do out of greed, laziness and ignorance.
 
Alas, we had a shepherd with this condition. The vet told us that most cases can be handled very well with the phenobarb, but they just got progressively worse to point where the poor guy was virtually stoned all the time.
Only made it to two, and the vet said most likely a brain tumor rather than the typical epilepsy syndrome.

Good luck!
 
I had an Alaskan Malamute that was elipeptic. He was diagnosed when he was about five or six years old. We'd had him since he was 11 months old and they just seemed to start in mid life. He was on Phenobarbital for the rest of his life. It is hard on the liver so it's good to get their blood levels checked a couple times a year. Once we got his levels dialed in so he wasn't zombified, Shredder was a happy Malamute. We used a half slice of American cheese to wrap his pill in twice a day so he wouldn't spit it out. After a while he seemed to be addicted to american cheese as if you were late with teh cheese delivery, he;d let you know!

It was his liver that finally failed, but not until he was eleven which is not too far off of normal for a dog that large. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't hesitate to medicate him as we got five more good years and the medication did a pretty good job of managing his condition.
 
Paul, PM or email me... I can help.

Most cases of seizures in dogs are similar to epilepsy in people. There is a genetic basis for them, and certain breeds it is harder to control in. I've had great troubles with border collies, malamutes, G. sheps, and the occasional Lab retr. First you have to rule out the other causes of seizures, which can be done through simple bloodwork. Also need to rule out any possible intoxications. About 85% of cases in dogs are genetically based, and begin to show up around 2-5 yrs of age.
The two most common seizure medications used are phenobarbital and potassium bromide. Phenobarb is often used first, because it is quicker to achieve therapeutic blood levels and control the seizures. Unfortunately it can and will cause liver damage with time and improper dosing. I also think there is a genetic predisposition to the severity of liver damage that will ensue. (I have seen this more commonly in G. sheps) Potassium bromide has been around for probably a century or two for seizure control. The pluses are that it is safer to use in regards to liver damage. The downside is that not every animal can tolerate it's first side-effects, which are predominantly loss of appetite and vomiting. Also it takes about 6 months ( :eek: !!!) to achieve therapeutic blood levels. Personally and professionally, I like and recommend Potassium bromide as the anti-convulsant of choice.

Zoo... cats can be extremely difficult to manage when they have seizures, the common anti-convulsants don't seem to work as well in them. Most cat seizures tend to be short lived in duration.

Remember... a seizure is medical proof that you have a brain! ;)
 
I knew that Mongo would ride into town, a'whumpin and a'whumpin,
to help out...good on ya, mate.
 
When I was in middle school-high school, we had a dog that developed epilepsy at about 5-6 years old. By then, this dog was a very loved and trusted member of the family. I came to be afraid of her when she would have these "waking seizures" where she'd get this crazy look and actually start foaming at the mouth and walk around in a daze, not responding to you at all. She also had seizures where she'd lie down and pass out and twitch violently.

The vet put her on Phenobarbitol (sp?) and we gave it to her as prescribed, but she still had occasional seizures and just wasn't ever the same. The one thing I remember is this: We had a room in our home (our "sunroom") where we had trained her not to go into, and she never, ever went into that room, even though there was no door, just a step down from the dining room. My parent's wanted to be able to have people over without the dog coming in and bothering them if they didn't want her there.

Well, I was home alone one day (I think I was about 16 then) and the dog started having one of those walking, foaming at the mouth seizures. I was in the sunroom, lying on the couch reading, and she walked up to the step with that crazy look. I went to her and tried to talk to her, but she started walking toward me, doing this sort of growling/snarling thing (completely unlike her) and I backed away as she followed me into the "off-limits" room. I climbed up on the couch to try to get away from her because I was scared of her. She followed me, then sort of went around in circles until she finally lay down and had a "regular" seizure.

Eventually we had to keep her so medicated that she was like a zombie, and she was even having "accidents" in the house on a regular basis. I came home from school one day and my mother told me that they had taken her to the vet's to be put down. As sad as I was to lose that dog, I knew we had lost her a long time ago, and it was almost a relief. I hated having to see her go from an intelligent, loyal, awesome dog to being this walking zombie-creature, and I didn't want to remember her like that.

That is my experience, and I hope that yours is a lot better. There must be a lot of things they can do if you have the money and time and the emotional security to try, and I don't know if the decision my parents made was the right one or not, but it was the best they could do. Basically it was my mom's dog; she spent more time with her than anyone, and trusted her completely until this all started happening. Of course, my mom was devastated and refuses to get another dog to this day, although she loves her "grand-dogs" - my dog and my sister's little monster.

Get a good vet, keep trying to help him if you can, and maybe you can avoid what we had to go through. I wish you the best of luck on this.

~ashes
 
Thanks for all of the replies. We will probably try to add KBr to the Phenobarbital after a while so that we can reduce the PB levels. Right now he is taking 90 mg twice a day. It is definitely making him act strangely, but it seems to be lessening each day. He is still uncoordinated and either restless and pacing or completely zoned out.

DaveH,
Seamus is a rescue dog and purebred mutt. We have contacted the woman we got him from so that she can let the people that took his brothers and sisters know to watch for signs.

Tortoise,
I'm inspired by stories like yours. I've heard that some dogs live a long time on the meds and some don't. I can only hope that Seamus' liver doesn't get too much damage.

Mongo,
Seamus is part Lab and we think part German Shepherd. He only weighs 75 pounds but his body and tail are just like some sort of Shepherd. I know that both of those breeds have a greater chance of getting Epilepsy. We had a CBC and chem panel (I think that was what they called it) run after his first grand mal seizure and they came back normal. Look for an email from me.
 
Paul, email received... I will get a reply off to you when I get a chance, hopefully today.
 
Have a Austrailan Shepherd that just had a seizure about a month ago.No more since.
Vet says food may be the culprit.
We'll see.
Randy
 
Nifrand,

What did your vet have to say about the food? Preservatives, dyes, or some other problem? What were you feeding and what are you switching to?
 
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