Two-month old pup with seizures

this is strictly 1'000 mile guess but it sounds as if this pup has been the victom of distemper...but again just a guess and your vet will probably have a much better diagnosis when the tests come bact

When was this pup's last distemper vaccination? I am just following along with dvet's train of thought. But my thought is more so a reaction to the vaccine than the disease possibly.However if it was a live vaccine, then it can cause disease in individuals with immune suppression.

"Neurologic symptoms are the most common vaccine reaction seen in dogs. Canine distemper vaccination is the most common cause of neurologic disease, and can cause an inflammation of the brain. Measles vaccine in puppies has been reported to rarely cause damage to the nervous system. Cerebellar disease has been reported in puppies and kittens less than 5 weeks of age who were vaccinated with a modified live vaccine."

[linkhttp://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1648&articleid=962]More info:[/link]
[linkhttp://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1648&articleid=962]http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1648&articleid=962[/link]

Yep, what Sophia and Dvet both said. 
 
There isn't any way the dog could have gotten into a chemical?  Like Pine Sol or anything like that?  (antifreeze - even a wee bit?)
 
I wish the first vet had been more proactive -- particularly since there were two seizures so close together -- a cluster was trying to 'happen' and they should have given the dog some valium or something (stress triggers seizures and often just the confusion, fear, etc. from the first one will trigger more seizures all in a row called "clusters"). 
 
Good thots and prayers -- the pup has been with you just long enough for you to get solidly attached.  Please please keep us posted.

The diagnosis for our pup, Boncuk, is that she has the genetic epilepsy.

At the clinic, they ran several tests and ruled out various possibilities triggering epilepsy symptoms. They gave us an epilepsy medication which is working quite fine so far. I will take her to the clinic on Monday again for reevaluation.

No, she was not exposed to any houses-cleaning chemicals. Besides, the vets also thought that she might have canine distemper. however, the symptoms and the tests pointed toward the genetic epilepsy diagnosis 'cause she has no fever, no diarrhea, no vomiting but seizures and saliva drooling. Besides, in her blood tests, there are no alarming values.

Actually, she hasn't had unsick break to get her scheduled vaccinations. our vet keeps postponing the vaccinations and focusing on treating her most immediate health problem.

There is a pretty good track record of "integrated medicine" for treating seizues.  If you just use phenobarb or potassium bromide the long term problems suck big time.  If you can manage the seizing with food and specifically with some herbals and accupuncture/accupressure you can often minimize the use of the harsh drugs.
 
Dunno where you are but the U of FL vets (particularly the neuro department) do a LOT with canine epilepsy.  Dr. Clemmons and Dr. Crissman both advocate "integrated" medicine for seizure management.  You can check them out either thru the University website or thru the TCVM website (both of them are on staff at the Chi Institute as well, and Dr. Xie, who is head of the Institute, also teaches herbology and acupuncture at the University.)
 
[linkhttp://wwww.tcvm.com]http://wwww.tcvm.com[/link] is the Chi Institute's website.  If you look on the left side of the page there is a 'locator' and it also has an international component - I don't know if there are TCVM vets in Turkey but I would think if there are not that you might find them willing to help you via email even.
 
For long-term management of something like this it is something to definitely consider. 
 
Learning to manage seizures -- both to foresee the "auras" (the body language and signs that the dog will give when a seizure is impending -- whether it's a grand mal seizure or a petit mal seizure) and to deal with the seizure as it is happening in a way that will calm the dog thru the seizure and help it to end quicker and without clustering -- that's the burden on you as the animal's caretaker.  There are herbs, as well as harsher and more habit-forming pharmaceuticals, that will help relax the dog to minimize the seizure. 
 
Also -- if you do a search on here just for the word "seizure" you will find a lot of other links that may be helpful to you. 
 
The genetic diagnosis does make sense.  But one of the things I've heard recommended is to keep a diary so that you can examine the events leading up to the seizure, so you can try to pinpoint any potential triggers in the environment.  Here in the States people are so prone to cleaning with chemicals that they often get blamed.  But there are other environmental causes (things like pine and even non-substance/chemicals things like light sensitivity) that you might be able to identify longer term. 

"Stress" generally can trigger a seizure-- and simply being a "puppy" is stressful!  They grow so fast .. their feet aren't the same 'size' as they were yesterday and everything changes -- today they may be teething, or growing 'pains' or just learning to live in a household and be house-trained.  All these things are 'stressful' in the puppy world so I would imagine that in the case of such a hereditary condition, that the puppy 'stage' will probably be harder.
 
Given that this is environmental, AND given the very nature of sexual maturation, you may want to talk to the vet about neutering as early as possible.  You won't want this dog to have progeny because of the genetic nature of the problem, and sexual maturation is, in itself, stressful and it might actually help a great deal to halt the onset of that maturation as early as possible.  I don't know if they do early spay/neuter in your area (it's probably more popular in the States because we have such an out of control canine population problem) but I would think the epilepsy specialist would have a good idea of if that could be accomplished.
 
Good luck -- this pup is very fortunate to have found a home with such caring people!!

Well, I just did a long post, and lost it.

To summerize:  You might want to visit dogtorj.net site.  It's dogtorj.net   He is a vet in Birmingham, AL that specializes in epilepsy and has a lot of info on it.    Another poster on here was able to go off of all prescription meds by changing the food that the dog ate - and her dog no longer has frequent seizures.  Apparently food issues are a large contributing factor to seizure episodes.  Now, I don't know if it makes a difference with genetic epilepsy and food issues or not versus a non-genetic diagnosis, but either way, it makes sense that avoiding trigger foods would help, even with a genetic issue.  I do suggest going to doctorj's web site.

And I agree completely with Callie - that Boncuk has found a very loving home and I am glad she has you to take care of her.  I know that you have been thru alot since you got her, but getting a good qualified diagnosis this early should help you cope.  I know there is some more learning to do, but it will get easier in time.  And again, she is blessed to have someone take good care of her and be willing to learn what will help her.

edited to add:  How could anyone not love that adorable face!  That is such a sweet picture of her - she is really cute!!

We got Cheyenne when she was 8 weeks old.  She was perfectly healthy until the day after she got her 9-weeks shots.  She then had diarrhea and really started acting strange starting that day.  We thought she was "messed up" because of the diarrhea.  Later that night after we had been in bed for a few minutes, we heard this awful slamming going on in Cheyenne's crate.  At the same time, we smelled diarrhea (which was all over her blankets) and heard her screaming.  We got her out of the crate, but she couldn't walk straight for a few minutes.  We were so scared.  She seemed "blind" and would slam into things. This was when I suspected that something else was wrong and that she wasn't acting like this because of her diarrhea. 

The next night she started smacking in the air like she was chewing a big piece of gum.  As she was doing this, she was drooling a lot.  She became very stiff.  Her face and big, glazed eyes were twitching.  Her left front leg was stuck in the air.  She fell over on her side, and then she pooped.  She was still stiff, but she was also shaking like crazy and seemed to be in another world.  When she came out of it, she seemed blind.  She sort of went crazy because she couldn't see.  She started screaming and freaking out.  She tried to run several times but would fall over or slam into something.  (Now when she starts having a seizure, we hold her and pet her through the entire episode.  Some say you're not supposed to hold the dog because they could pull muscles, but we figure that would be better than her slamming into things.)  Then Cheyenne came totally out of the seizure and whimpered for a while before she zonked out.  After that, I knew what she had had was a seizure, so I called our vet.  The vet ran all sorts of tests and found everything to be normal.

We contacted the breeder, and she was shocked since she said that years and years ago, a few dogs in this line had seizures due to vaccines.  I had always thought a vaccine reaction was swelling of the face the next day or a raised bump where the needle was inserted.  So, we then started a prednisone taper (and some Benadryl which is supposed to also help with vaccine reactions - plus it calms her down some).  Cheyenne started with 20 mg of prednisone a day for ten days.  Then she went down to 10 mg a day (and no Benadryl).  When I started giving her the 10 mg every other day, she started having those awful seizures again.  So now we're back up to 10 mg every day (with Benadryl), so she's been seizure-free since then.  We're going to taper the prednisone even more now, so we can eventually get her off it.  It's been an awful experience since Cheyenne has had over 20 seizures since then, but I've learned a lot.

I know precious Boncuk didn't have a vaccine reaction like my puppy did, but having the seizures is what they have in common.  You'll find that there are all sorts of people who have dogs that have seizures; more than I realized!  Most of these dogs can live perfectly normal lives.  Here are some links that have shed some light on canine seizures:

[linkhttp://www.vetinfo.com/dogseizure.html]http://www.vetinfo.com/dogseizure.html[/link]
[linkhttp://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/]http://www.canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/[/link]
[linkhttp://www.canine-epilepsy.com/]http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/[/link]
[linkhttp://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_seizure_disorder.html]http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_seizure_disorder.html[/link]
[linkAG=461&dept_id=506078&rfi=6]http://www.zwire.com/site/tab3.cfm?newsid=17616696&BRD=2553&AG=461&dept_id=506078&rfi=6[/link]>http://www.zwire.com/site/tab3.cfm?newsid=17616696&BRD=2553&AG=461&dept_id=506078&rfi=6]http://www.zwire.com/site/tab3.cfm?newsid=17616696&BRD=2553&AG=461&dept_id=506078&rfi=6[/link]
[linkhttp://www.canine-seizures.freeservers.com/after_seizure.htm]http://www.canine-seizures.freeservers.com/after_seizure.htm[/link] 

Dr. Jean Dodds is very involved in helping with canine seizures.  I wrote to her about Cheyenne, and she replied with some great advice.  Also, many people swear by some of the homoepathic remedies (such as Thuja).  One more thing...there are some really good Yahoo groups you could join.  There's one in particular that's pretty active, and the people are really nice and helpful.  Even some of the people on the forum have seizures themselves, so they definitely have experience.  If you're interested, PM me and I'll tell you the name (since I can't remember the exact name right now).

Hang in there!! BTW, here's a photo I took of Cheyenne a few nights ago.  Compare her in this picture to the one in the signature.  See!!! Even though she's been having these awful seizures, she's growing as she's supposed to.  She even weighs the same as her five siblings. Hang in there!!!! Boncuk is so adorable!!!  She's also so fortunate to have you as her mommy! 

Ok here is the latest update on our pup:

She has ups and downs every single day. One day she has seizures 4 hours apart, then another day only 1 hour apart and then comes 10min--aparts.

She goes to the vet everyday in order to get her antibiotics shots for prolonged kennel cough illness with its high fevers which is thought to be the main responsible for the epileptic symptoms.

Today she has been having tiny seizures which last only seconds and then she acts like she had never had a seizure in her life. However, this morning she started to have those tiny ones early in the morning then around 10 am they began to take place one after another. Around 4 pm she was in a state of chain of tiny seizures although they are not as severe as her first ones a few day ago. Now, she is circling, drooling, losing her balance, and panicking despite Phenobarbital and sedative. Her symptoms look like post-ictal stage of the seizure, but an endless one.

Our vet asked us to increase the intake of Phenobarbital from 2 ml/gr to 4 ml/gr a day, -- don't forget the fact that our pup is just three moths old -- also advised us to use a non-narchotic sedative which is supposed to make her sleep, but it just slowed her a notch for about 4 to 5 hours. During that period I could see her face twitching, and her eyes wide open. Obviously, she did not sleep a sec.

Although we are sort of relaxed that he seizures are not that severe, she does not look good at all. she does not respond to her medicine and she does not calm down a bit. she is just standing up and looking at nothing.

I gotta admit, today was very hard and disappointing.

I had a dog with seizures when I was a child.  There wasn't any treatment way back then..., he would go through the seizure, took a minute or so, then he would get back up and run off, like nothing happened.   We didn't have him when he was a puppy, so not sure how old he was when he got this problem.
 
Your puppy is sweet looking. It must be hard to see her going through this so young.  Hope that her stamina stays. I know what it is like having a dog you love go through the vet, hospitalization thing.  Prayers are with you and your little gal.

Yesterday afternoon was like hell.

From 2 pm to 6 pm she had chain of non-stop seizures. watching her going through those merciless seizures were awful.

My vet advised me to increase the Phenobarbital amount. today, so far, it seems like working.

I am exhausted. I am still shaken by yesterday's episodes.

Please please please -- even if you've never considered alternative methods or used them for another thing ever ... PLEASE consider them for this.  *fast*
 
There are so many things *you* can do to help minimize seizing and to help them thru a seizure.  Has the vet instructed you on how to calm the dog thru the seizure?  Has this vet even given you valium to help the dog *not* cluster like this?
 
When I am suggesting things like acupuncture and herbals -- this isn't weird, unheard of stuff -- this is actually being taught at the University of Florida vet school at Gainesville and other places.  Epilepsy is probably one of the most common places that such techniques are helping neurologists all over deal with seizure activity. 
 
A good referral place is the Chi Institute -- [linkhttp://www.tcvm.com]http://www.tcvm.com[/link] -- there's a locator on the left.  I'm not talking about you leaving your regular vet -- this is specifically to supplement this care and help you get this under control and help keep the pheno from damaging the liver while this pup is growing so fast.
 
I have a friend who does epi dog rescue -- I know Rita would help walk you thru some of the personal techniques to help you cope with this. 
 
 

Callie, unfortunately the OP is in Turkey where there are no vets listed on your website link.  Do you know any that might help long distance via email? 
 
Boncuk,  will be praying for the best possible outcome for you and your pup.

Hi all,

For the last four - five days our pup, Boncuk, is seizure free, thankfully. Although she is still adjusting to Phenobarbital, she looks like she is gonna be fine.

I am still in touch with our vet almost everyday so as to be sure that everything goes as smooth as possible.

Thanks for the support and the info.