Does anyone else here have an epileptic dog? How are you coping, and have you found anything besides drugs to help?
As I reported then, my dog Zoe had a bad seizure in October. I attributed it to a toxic chemical ingestion, but in December she had another seizure, and then two weeks ago had a very serious one. I think the doctor said it was a Status Epilepticus seizure - she had to be anesthetized to stop the seizure. Fortunately she was being boarded at the animal hospital so she received immediate attention and survived.
She’s been on phenobarbitol since then, but had yet another mild seizure last night. She was behaving weak and disoriented the day before, so I think she had another one that day as well. Right now she’s very lathergic, even while out on a walk. I took her to the vet yesterday and had some blood work done but the results aren’t back yet.
I had an English Springer Spaniel that had epilepsy. This was when I was a kid, so more than 15 years ago.
Anyway, once we figured out it was epilepsy, the dog went on Phenobarbitol. I can’t remember if he started out on it 3 times a day, or if that’s just how it progressed. We’d give it to him in little chunks of hot dog.
As the dog got older, it got worse, and so we had to up the medication. As a result, he was the most lethargic dog EVER. He just laid around a lot. At some point he was still having seizures despite the medication, and so we put him to sleep.
That probably doesn’t sound hopeful for you, but this was over a period of maybe 5-7 years I’d guess. For the most part the medication worked fine, though there’d be an occasional minor seizure. The extreme lethargy didn’t really kick in until closer to the end (probably because of more medication). I’d guess the lethargy must be a common side effect of the phenobarb.
Thank you for the honest post. Yes that’s what I’ve been told, though they also said it should get a little better after the first couple of weeks. And she’s been much worse these past few days. Hopefully I’ll find out more when the blood test results come…
We had a boxer/golden/etc mutt who was epileptic. The phenobarbitol definitely made him very groggy and disoriented. We tried to find a balance between having a totally doped up dog all the time and him having seizures all the time. There were times when he’d go months without one, and then usually would have a few within a relatively short time, and then more months without.
Eventually they just started happening more and more often, and he had to be doped up more and more of the time, and we had him put down. I don’t remember how old he was exactly, I want to say 7 or 8 or 9 at the end.
It depended. Often, on the first day he’d have between 1 and 3 (3 was pretty rare). Within the next few days (maybe a week at most) he might have one or two more. Then it would subside for a while. Sometimes it’d be only like two months, but I know that he went as long as seven months at one point between seizures.
I had a Golden Retriever who was epileptic all his long life (14 years). He was on several different drugs, I forget which ones, but we stayed with the phenobarb. He got used to it.
The seizures were right out of the Exorcist – he’d vomit, fly across the floor, as if powered by something else and then flail for about 3 to 5 minutes. Very frightening, but I got used to dealing with them. During the flailing part, he seemed to be calmed by my presence and voice and though one vet told me not to try to handle him during a seizure (they can bite without the intending to) I, probably foolishly, did anyway. I always petted him and talked to him from the time he went down until he stopped shaking. [Disclaimer: I’m not advising you do this, as I said, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did, but it is how I handled them.]
This happened about once a month in a bad year, to a couple of times a year in a good one.
He had a great life despite the epilepsy, scr4 and died of old age. Good luck.
Arthur was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was almost four. He had a seizure one night when we were watching TV. He had the shuddering, draining, muscles straining, but no vomiting. “He curled up like a spider sprayed with Raid” was how I put it at the time.
The vet offered us 3 options: do nothing and see what his seizure pattern is, try potassium (I think that’s what it was) because it might inhibit the seizures somewhat, or go the whole hog and put him on phenobarbital. He did not recommend the phenobarb for our situation since it can sometimes make dogs lose their inhibitions to the point where they’ll bite (whereas they wouldn’t normally). We had a four-month-old at the time. No phenobarb for us.
Long story short, he averaged about a seizure every 2 or 3 months for the rest of his life, which was long. The doc told us the seizures would eventually get him, but they never did. Toward the end of his life, he did have more frequent and severe seizures, but they never averaged more than about once a month (although occasionally he have 2 or 3 a week and then nothing for 2 months).
He died at age 13 of cancer of the lymph nodes. We were lucky to have him.
I don’t know if this is still true, but our veterinarian explained to us that in significant cases of epilepsy, the epilepsy will either kill the dog or else the medication will. Phenobarb is very toxic to the liver. You might want to ask your doctor about any present and future side effects of any medications; it might help you with making choices about your dog’s treatment.
Good luck to you. It’s hard for the dogs to go through the epilepsy, and heartbreaking for the owners who can’t help them much.
Oh, and about non-drugs. Our latest vet advised us to dribble a bit of honey or syrup, something sweet, into our dog’s mouth if practical when he was first acting as though he might have a seizure. The vet said sometimes low blood sugar can be a seizure trigger, and just-in-time sweets might help. It didn’t work for Arthur, but if you can do so safely (dogs do bite during seizure sometimes, as another poster mentioned), you might try it.
I wrote an article for a dog magazine awhile ago on phenobarbital and potassium bromide for dogs with seizures, and I included the URL for this site in it. Good place for owners to go for both information and support.
The other forum I belong to is Greytalk. Some families of greyhounds have significant of problems with seizures/epilepsy. The people on this board have dealt with a lot and know a good deal about canine health issues. Several members don’t actually own greys. You might want to check out the Health & Medical section & do a search on seizures or epilepsy.
Our 5 year old mutt had his first seizure about 18 months ago. Fortunately they are just petite mals. We opted to not give him meds unless they become too frequent. Right now it’s about one every few months.
We found a correlation between rawhide bones and the seizures.
Since we stopped giving them to him he rarely has them anymore.
Phenobarb is great if the seizures are severe or frequent but the side effects and the long term dangers may not be worth it for some dogs.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t use it but make sure you get a second opinion.
We had a Border Collie who started having seizures at about a year old. The vet prescribed phenobarb, and that worked for a while. Then the seizures came back, and we had to increase the dosage. This continued until the dog was basically zonked out all the time. Finally we reached the maximum dosage, and the dog still had seizures. So we had to put him down. From the time of his first seizure to having to put him down was about a year and a half. A very sad day, because otherwise he was a wonderful dog.
Our dog has seizures too. One every four/five months or so. We haven’t used medication too much and neither the frequency nor the severity have changed.
One thing we did notice was that immediately after a seizure and for a few days after Tikka is VERY thirsty. Right now if she starts one then somebody supports her and gets her to lie down while someone strolls off to bring her waterbowl to her. She’ll drink it dry and need to do the same regularly for about 48 hours. Otherwise she doesn’t seem out of sorts. Might be worth bringing your pooch a drink in the aftermath to see if he/she needs it as dehydration might be a contributing factor.