Seizure

    • Gold Top Dog

    Seizure

    The lad called me at work shortly before I was ready to leave and said Jules had had what appeared to be a seizure. He said he'd been laying next to him on the couch, then went to his side, legs stiff and appeared to seize for a short amount of time (less than half a minute, estimated). When he touched him, he stopped, sat up and appeared to be normal.   It sounded as if he was stable (and I also had the car, so he couldn't bring him to me), so I said I'd take a look when I got home.  The vet had me take some valium home on the off chance he seized again.

    When I got home about half an hour later, he was limping a bit (which stopped a few minutes later..he does have very rare on and off limping issues with that arm, so that wasn't concerning). He appeared normal, although more subdued than he normally is when I come home. Usually he's running around and wooing at me, with a spint thrown in here and there. This time he kept his tail down, seemed mopey, and seemed almost pouty or sheepish, for lack of a better way to describe it.  His reflexes and colors were good.

    He doesn't eat things or chew inappropriate things, and we don't have chemicals, so not worried about him having ingested something.  He's not acted odd lately.  I am taking him in tomorrow for a blood panel, just to check the basics.  He had bloodwork last year, but he'll be 8 next month and bloodwork can never hurt.  I'm not concerned about starting him on any meds, obviously, over one seizure. But I want to make sure I don't miss something that might have caused it.  Anything else I should be having checked when he goes in?

    • Gold Top Dog

    Please do NOT let the vet just put him on phenobarb or anything similar.  Even *if* it is seizure activity, truly you can do SO much with herbs with NONE of the side effects you see with the drugs.  You may want to consider consulting a TCVM vet -- talk to Pirate's Mom (slr2meg) or Bevo's mom about TCVM. 

    If you go to the Chi Institute website http://www.tcvm.com -- there is a locator on the left hand side to help you find whoever is near you.  Feel free to email me if I can help.  I'm NOT saying leave your vet -- NOT AT ALL -- it's just simply a great addition if you *are* having to deal with seizure activity.

     While you can still remember, make a list of the last two months -- anything like Frontline or Advantage, even heartworm meds -- does anyone use pine cleaner in your home, or are there pine trees nearby.  Even things like blinking/flashing lights (even like a laser pointer) can trigger seizures.  TONS of things can.

    • Gold Top Dog

    No worries on the pheno, they're pretty slow to prescribe it anyway, and I've never heard of it even being suggested after just one seizure.  (I'd not go for it anyway, but it's usually not even brought up after just one) I'm pretty careful about giving my dogs any meds (everything gets researched first) and I tend to err on the side of caution anyway.

    We don't use flea, tick or heartworm treatments as there aren't mosquitos here. He had a bordatella vaccine (nasal) a month ago, as he was boarding and it was required. (but although he doesn't get it yearly, he's had it several times over his lifetime and not had an issue with that one). And he's on the three year vaccine schedule, so he's not had anything else recently.  

     No pine cleaners (or pine trees..we live in a pretty vegetation free area...whee for the desert) and no new products at home. His food has remained the same, and he's also not had a new bag of food in the last few weeks. No new treats. He had a lamb shank to gnaw on last week (just the meat..he doesn't chew pieces off the bone), but all four dogs had meat from the same shank and no one else had issue. (and he's had lamb before)   Really can't think of anything different.

    The lad was playing a video game. but I don't believe it is at all flashy  (from what I've seen, it's a lot of walking Stick out tongue)   and he's been around it before.  (lots of gaming here)

     

    • Gold Top Dog

    As Callie said there are lots of things that can cause a seizure.  See http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2105&aid=433

    There is a vet (an epileptic himself) that maintains that the blood-brain barrier can become too permeable (virus?) and that the diet must be adjusted to minimize certain compounds in order to avoid seizures. 

    Do note that "idiopathic epilepsy" is not a diagnosis.  It means the person/animal has seizures, but the cause has not been identified. 

    I sure hope the difficulty is just an infection that can be easily resolved!!

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    Actually a vax that happened a month ago *could* be a trigger.  I know it can be hard to "think of something" -- and it can seem pretty pointless but it's not.  Because finding the trigger can help *you* enormously figure out how to reduce the chances of recurrance -- and you always also have the possibility that it's health-related and you DON'T want that to be the case.

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    Did you use anything to clean with? That Fabuloso junk (my BF loves it's smell, ICK!) will do it to Pirate, every time. So will Swiffer Wet-Jet. I got to the point where I just threw everything out, LOL.

    When Pirate started to go downhill with his seizures (in January) my regular vet agreed that it could have been the bord vaccine that he got a month earlier. Pirate had been given it a bafrillion times too and never had a problem, so...who knows!

    TV does seem to bother Pirate, so when we had a TV I made him stay on the floor when it was on. I'm pretty sure the flashing is so fast that we can't see it with our naked eyes.

    In the future when he's home alone, you might want to confine him somewhere safe until you get a better idea of what kind of seize-er he is - Pirate will ALWAYS go for his crate if he's going to seize so I don't worry about *him* hurting himself, but I've heard of dogs falling off of couches or down stairs or whatnot, during seizures, and getting hurt :(

    I hope he feels better!

    • Gold Top Dog

    We hadn't cleaned anything recently. I'm also pretty picky with our cleaning process. I get migraines from strong smells, so we keep things mild.  

    We're doing a send out blood panel, which will go out on Monday (lab doesn't pick up on Saturdays), so we'll see what the results say.  He had bloodwork about a year ago, so at least there's a somewhat recent guideline to go by.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Has he had a full thyroid panel done?  If not, I would have one done at MSU or Hemopet to get an age and breed adjusted result.

    http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/overview.html
    "A recent study of 634 dogs showed that 77% of the dogs who were hypothyroid also had seizures."

    • Gold Top Dog
    Oooh, I just noticed - Jules is your wee one, right? Any chance his blood sugar was low? Pirate eats 3x a day to keep him evened out, or else he gets grouchy and wonky. I'm just throwing ideas out! Good luck with the blood. Hopefully it shows, well, something or nothing LOL. Darn if it shows nothing, since you've got no answers and a perfect blood panel, and darn it if it shows SOMETHING, because then you've got to deal with it.

    Don't tempt me into MORE bloodwork, Janet!! :) Interesting link though. I might do a thyroid panel next time Pirate has a 'yearly checkup'.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Dr. B's folks are all practiced at it LOL -- in fact, Billy's gotta have a thyroid panel the end of this month.