Seizures in dogs

[ajwolfe]

Anyone had any experience with seizures/epilepsy in dogs? If so, what kind of treatment is your pooch receiving for this?

Pretty sure our Valley Bulldog had a seizure in the wee hours of the morning this morning. Thank goodness we were home because her neck swelled a bit and her collar was too tight causing some extra issues. Aside from a few weird little issues (constant sniffing and pacing) she seems to have recovered well this morning.

I've made her a vet appointment and been doing some researching on the topic. Just wanted to see what personal experiences may be and be prepared to ask the right questions when she has her appointment.

Thanks!

 

[crisi]

Yep.

There are a few things that cause seizures in dogs. Ours are stress induced, and although we used to medicate him, it turns out the medication doesn't help if his stress goes up, and he doesn't have seizures without stress. Since the medications for seizures are hard on the liver (and expensive), we just stopped them and now keep him calm. The first one was in the middle of the night, so "bad dream."

With the first, he ended up at the vet, which was stressful (seizure) and ended up with the emergency vet. The vet said he was probably too old for it to be epilepsy, so it was most likely a brain tumor. Knowing that there wasn't much we could do about a brain tumor, we took him home with "probably weeks or months to live" - that was two years ago.

The one thing to be hyper aware of, when your dog comes out of a seizure, her behavior might be very unpredictible. I spent a night in the hospital with a dog bite after trying to restrain my dog post seizure. A dog prone to seizures should be kept under control all the time.

 

[bianca]

Our Shih-Tsu had about 6 seizures over the course of 3 months a few years ago. Took him to the vet where they did basic testing and was told that they couldn't find a reason for them. He hasn't had any since. However, he did have an eye go bad (Shih-Tsu thing) and had it removed in the year following the seizures. I do wonder if there is a correlation, even if the vet isn't concerned. He has been fine and seizure free for the last 2 years.

 

[BrookieM2001]

Our dog also had seizures. They started when she was 6ish and seem to be stress induced most of the time like PP said. She tends to have them when we are packing for a trip or if there’s a lot of commotion. Our vet said the drugs are super expensive and side effects aren’t great so unless she is experiencing one or more a month he doesn’t medicate. She usually only has a couple per year so it’s not a big deal. However, she invariably throws up about 5 minutes after the seizure ends so that’s something we need to be aware of so we don’t have a seizing dog AND vomit to deal with. But otherwise, she is usually back to her normal self after half an hour or so.

 

[FredtheDuck]

One of mine had a series of seizures in October/November. Because he was having what are called cluster-seizures (a series of seizures over a 24 hour period), he was put on an anti-seizure medication that he will have to be on for the rest of his life. The medication is something like $60/month for him, and he's a big dog (so he gets 2 pills/dose, 4 total/day).

 

[aprilchem]

I don't have a dog with seizures, but I have a son with epilepsy and my friend whose dog had seizures takes the same medicine my son takes - Valproic Acid. She was able to get a prescription for the dog and have it filled at her local pharmacy, and it wasn't too costly. It's a pretty effective medicine for seizures - my son has 100% control on it, and the dog did too!

 

[ajwolfe]

Thank you for the responses! I was wondering how budget friendly the meds were.

So our Daisy is about 6.5 yrs old so seems a bit too old to just be developing them from what I'm reading.
She did end up peeing herself this morning but no vomit thankfully. I can't imagine anything could have caused her extra stress other than a bad dream. She was sleeping like normal with our youngest son, we aren't packing to go out of town or nothing was out of the ordinary at home.

We have noticed in the last year she is having some on and off issues with her back legs which the vet and us just chalked up to aging for a bigger dog - wonder if it's all connected.

 

[paisleys]

My elderly dog had a series of seizures three years ago. Anyway after the first seizure, I brought her to the vet and she was diagnosed with 'Old Dog Vestibular'. She was given anti nausea meds and then was fine in a few days. 6 months later she had another seizure, which resulted in a permanent head tilt but otherwise fine. I started researching and found that the tick medicine we were giving both of our dogs was in the news for causing seizures. I immediately stopped the tick medicine and she never had another seizure in three years she lived (she passed away last night from unrelated issues, old age and cancer ). Look into the meds she is taking, just as a precaution...

 

[crisi]

Ours was on levetiracetam - that was about $300 a month - there are cheaper meds, but that was what the emergency vet had given him and that was what the regular vet wanted to keep him on.

(Now he's a twelve year old sized large dog who doesn't get around well, is grey at the muzzle, sleeps a lot and his medication is cheese and pizza - he's been milking this "six weeks to live" thing for two years.)

 

[crisi]

My dog passed away last night from unrelated issues, old age and cancer .

I'm sorry to hear about your dog.

 

[paisleys]

I'm sorry to hear about your dog.

Thank you very, very much.

 

[SgtTibbs]

If it happens again, get video of it. The vet will want to see that. My dog recently had a "seizure" that turned out to be extreme vertigo caused by a growth in his brain which has since been treated with steroids.

 

[ajwolfe]

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your furbaby!

We just put flea/tick meds on her on Sunday so I'm wondering if that wasn't the cause - but that seems like long enough it would have been an issue already but maybe not.

 

[crisi]

Be ready for "we don't know" and "we might be able to find out, but testing will be expensive" - we elected not to test - the dog has always hated the vet and dog MRIs sounded stressful. I have a girlfriend who has a dog that has been having clustered seizures for months, and she keeps taking him to the vet and running tests - they still don't know why, but I suspect the vet is getting her student loans paid off from that dog.

 

[Criickette]

We had an English Bulldog who had seizures starting around age 6. They came out of nowhere. His first seizure started during a “bad dream” (same as a previous poster, strange). The vet did all the testing but couldn’t find a cause. After another seizure, the vet put him on seizure medicine which worked for about a year. The seizures returned including absence seizures. One night he had a few seizures within a short time frame and they affected his back legs. He started having difficulty walking and standing up...was really rough. The emergency vet and regular vets did testing but we never got real answers (as others posted). We tried a few different medications but nothing seemed to work.

 

[gillep]

Our dog had two seizures in an 8 or so hour period about two years ago at 6. The vet prescribed him phenobarbitol and he has not had any seizures since. He is a beagle so they are more prone to developing epilepsy. He gets his phenobarbitol level checked yearly as well as liver enzymes and his phenobarbitol level is always in the low end of the therapeutic range and no liver issues at all. I used to get his meds from the vet which was over $30 per month, we switched to CVS and now it is about $30 every 3 months.

 

[Heatherhy01]

My elderly dog had a series of seizures three years ago. Anyway after the first seizure, I brought her to the vet and she was diagnosed with 'Old Dog Vestibular'. She was given anti nausea meds and then was fine in a few days. 6 months later she had another seizure, which resulted in a permanent head tilt but otherwise fine. I started researching and found that the tick medicine we were giving both of our dogs was in the news for causing seizures. I immediately stopped the tick medicine and she never had another seizure in three years she lived (she passed away last night from unrelated issues, old age and cancer ). Look into the meds she is taking, just as a precaution...

So sorry for your loss

 

[kool_kat]

Both of my dachshunds have had seizures (very common for the breed). One was having them quite regularly, and she had to be put on phenabarbitol (sp?) which I get from CVS for 30.00 a month. The point of the meds was to bring her seizures down to 1 or 2x a year max. The med cost isn't too bad, it's the bloodwork that gets pricey. We have to have her levels
checked and also do blood work to check her liver.

When she had seizures they were bad...she would zone out and you could tell she wasn't there. There was a vacant look in her eyes. I would simply hold her. Sometimes she would pee on me and sometimes not. I could tell she was coming out of it because she would start licking her lips and regain awareness. From what I've been told, the seizures are much scarier for the owner than the dog.

My other dog only has them very occasionally (once a year or less) and so she isn't on anything.

 

[str86diesel]

I don't know a lot about it and of course it all depends on where you live, but you might want to check into CBD oil. I have read and heard a lot of success stories about it helping people and animals with seizures.

 

[2China2009]

I have had 2 dogs with seizures. My deceased Golden Retriever was on potassium bromide for 10 years and lived a very good quality of life. My mini golden doodle who will be 4 soon started having seizures about 2 years ago. They were horrible and she would roll up like a pretzel and cry, scream and yelp and just shake. She is now on 2ml of potassium bromide and 2 pheobarb at bedtime. I have chosen to keep her on meds as her quality of life is awesome and I do not want that to change.