Rough night

Tom Baugues

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Lafayette, Indiana
My wife and I are set to leave on vacation in the morning. Last night our 12 year old dog had a seizure at 3 am and again at 7 am. That was pretty scary as she had never before had anything like that happen to her. Neither my wife nor I had ever experienced anything like that as well. We took her to the vet who took blood samples but didn't really find a reason for the seizers. She had another seizer at noon and just as I was writing this ( an hour ago)she had another. That makes four of them...about 5 hours apart. I feel so helpless. This is a very empty feeling. Not sure what do do with her

Tom
 
Our first show dog started seizures at about 3 years old, and his episodes were about 4 to 5 months apart. A good friend and trained but not a practicing Vet told us to get a urinalysis. Our Vet said it would be useless. Our friend insisted that we insist, and we found triple phosphate crystals suggesting a metabolic imbalance. In the blood work up they found eosinophills (spelling is wrong I'm sure) that suggested allergies. We started cooking rice and liver for him to eat. We put Brie on Benadryl at first, then changed to a prescription antihistamine for the allergies. We went about 8 years seizure free. Old age brought them back on.
Make sure your dog didn't get into any bug spray or other poisons. 12 years old is not the normal for idiopathic epilepsy to start, so I'm thinking there must be something else that triggered it. Oh, we also found that stress usually triggered seizures in Brie. Almost every time my wife left town for a convention, he would seizure the second day she got back. It is scary to see this, and you feel sooo helpless. I do remember laying on top of Brie on the floor at the Vet's office one time when he was having a cluster of grand mal seizures. We were blocking the front door. It was the only time our Vet actually saw him have a seizure. These can be very dangerous.
Do you have a trusted friend or family member that can be with your dog while you are gone? Oh, and there is a Yahoo list for people who have dogs that have seizures. We think it is called Epi-L. My wife said to google ocular compression and try that. It is possible that there is a tumor that could be causing the problem.
Will keep your pup in our prayers. Jim.
 
Our big ole lab got the 'dizzy dog disease' (Can't remember the technical name) and started having seizures once he got on in years. It's heartbreaking. They never really found the source of the seizures, but the pills they gave us seemed to help for a while.

Best wishes to to you and your little buddy Tom. I know how it feels and it aint easy... :(
 
Tom,

Sorry to hear about the seizures. I know it can be scary. I hope that they can figure it out because I know the dog needs help right now.

Best to you and your dog...
paul
 
Tom. hopefully medication can help. I have a good friend who owned an English sheepdog who had seizures, and like Brent's and Sharon's dog, the vet put her on phenobarbital. That helped a lot for many years.

Wishing you the best...and comfort, should it be the worst.
 
Phenobarbital is the medicine of choice when the seizures are frequent enough to be able to monitor if it is helping the dog. In the case of our dog, the seizures were so far apart, the Vet didn't use it.
But these seizures have such a sudden beginning, and with so many in such a short time, I'd sure be looking at another cause. Hopefully not a tumor, but I wonder if they can do a screen for toxins like they do humans to see if there is anything that is causing the problem. Maybe that is what your Vet is doing with the blood test. This is very troubling. I'm so sorry you are having to go through this. Jim.
 
Man Tom thats to bad I feel for ya. We had a pug a few years back that had seizures and the first time I seen it, it scared the heck out of me. We controled it with Phenobarbital for several years.
Hope you hear something soon and its good news

Jay
 
I'm very sympathetic Tom. Nothing worse than a sick dog--except a sick child, of course. I have 2 French Bulldogs. One is fine, knock wood, and the other has had every disease known to veterinary science. His vet bills were always........unbelievable . I hope things work out. Modern science and modern chemistry can do all kinds of great things. But if it's bad, let us know, and we will comfort you.
Cynthia
 
I had a golden retriever growing up in my mothers house.
He had some form of epilepsy and he was on medication his entire long life.(depakene)
I hope your vet figures out your doggies problem.
I remember how tough it was to see the dog and feel so helpless.
 
UPDATE: I want to thank everyone for their kind words during this very stressful time.

6/26/10 My wife and I just got back from our vacation tonight. We went to the clinic as soon as we returned and was presented with a healthy happy dog! We are so happy! The clinic started her on Phenobarbital as soon as we left her and they told us she never had any more seizors after that. We are really in shock. These people took such great care of her. We will keep her on the meds for 8-10 weeks then reevaluate the need.
This was not a fun experience and I now have a new appreciation for some of you that I have read about here that have gone through his and worse.

Thank you all again for your thoughts.

Tom
 
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