Anyone had/have a dog with Epilepsy?

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BlackVelvet

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:( On Sunday night my little black lab had a seizure, she has never had one before that we know of and she was obviously distressed, but did come round and has been fine since.

I rang the emergancy vet as soon as it happened, he said to let her come round and them bring her in if we think she needs to. I stayed up with her all night as she is a scared soul at the best of times. She went to the vet first thing Monday morning, and she had blood tests etc. He came to the idea that she most probably had Epilepsy as she had them in her sleep, no medication has been given in the hope we can manage them as apparently the medication can often make the lethergic and down. She is only 7 years old so ideally we want to make her as happy as we can. She is a fit labrador, can walk for miles and miles and miles, not overweight in the slightest but she is a nervy dog so i wouldnt like to maker her unhappy anyway.

Has anyone had any experience of Epilepsy in dogs??
 
sorry to hear that :(

we did have a bitch with epilepsy, she started having the odd fit whenever she was stressed, and there was nothing we could do about it.

vet said the same thing to us about the medication, so we just managed her, and tied to keep her as stress free for as much as possible.

i think in the end they became so frequent, it was kinder to let her go, so we did- they escalated rapidly in the space of a year


she was the absolute runt of her litter though, she was half the size of the others, so I don't know if that was related.

she wasn't very old when she went, maybe 5 or 6, it was such a shame :( we still have her litter brother now (and another who died last year) and they had no signs of it whatsoever, thank heavens

hopefully yours will be more manageable, and not get any worse :)
 
My friend has two terriers which are sisters and both have them have developed epilepsy in the last year or so. I think they are about 4/5 years old. As their fits start to become frequent they are both on tablets, not sure which or the dose, but it certainly has not made them any quieter or calm!! But one of them has put on weight, which obviously needs to be watched and controlled. From what she has told me they usually have fits in the evening when they are resting/asleep, sometimes wet themselves during the fit. Hers seem to be upset and clingy afterwards and subdued for a while. If you have any questions I will pass them on for you, she'll be happy to help.
 
My dog has CECS which is a form of epilepsy. She is managed solely through diet and has only had a minor fit since.

She cant have any red meat and the diet has to be low protein.

Might be worth a google?
 
Cadfael&Coffee said:
sorry to hear that :(

she was the absolute runt of her litter though, she was half the size of the others, so I don't know if that was related.

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Hmm thats interesting as I think she was also the runt of the litter, we also have her full sister from the same litter. Wonder if it could be connected..

As for her diet, we cant feed her anything other than her food really as she gets a poorly tummy even off chicken, any meat. She even has to have a muzzle on when walked as she will eat anything she finds and it makes her poorly.
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My best friend's OES has it, managed with Phenobarbital successfully for several years.

It can be genetic so if you know any of her close relatives (sire, dam, siblings) it might be worth notifying their owners and I would definitely notify the breeder if you know who they are.
 
PoppyG said:
My friend has two terriers which are sisters and both have them have developed epilepsy in the last year or so. I think they are about 4/5 years old. As their fits start to become frequent they are both on tablets, not sure which or the dose, but it certainly has not made them any quieter or calm!! But one of them has put on weight, which obviously needs to be watched and controlled. From what she has told me they usually have fits in the evening when they are resting/asleep, sometimes wet themselves during the fit. Hers seem to be upset and clingy afterwards and subdued for a while. If you have any questions I will pass them on for you, she'll be happy to help.
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This is exactly what she is like!! She is asleep when she fits and also wets herself which upsets her even more she never wees in the house! The next day if she could have jumped in your pocket she would have done!
 
CaveCanem said:
My best friend's OES has it, managed with Phenobarbital successfully for several years.

It can be genetic so if you know any of her close relatives (sire, dam, siblings) it might be worth notifying their owners and I would definitely notify the breeder if you know who they are.
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I have her full sister from the same litter so I will definitly keep an eye on her. I got them both from a rescue lady so I will let her know as she still has their pedigree papers. I dont think they had the best parents, bless them. Her sister only has one eye and she was the runt!
 
Not quite the same but we had a collie when I was young which was hit by a car and he then suffered fits. He would go weeks, even months between them and then he had 8 in a day and we knew that the time had come. We didn't medicate but did acknowledge the fact he would be very tired the day after one and we did end up separating him from our other dog as during one fit the other dog tried to drag him out the kennel by his leg (not sure what he was thinking) and gave him some serious bruises so just if you have other dogs keep maybe keep that in mind.
 
BWa, that is quite common, dogs can go primal and will attack what they see as a weak, vulnerable or suffering dog in a pack, even if they had got on well up until that point. They can also just get scared by another dog acting so out of character and go into defence mode.
 
We had a Lab x Collie diagnosed with epilepsy. It started with just the odd fit but they got more and more frequent. He ended up being on four Phenobarbital a day which managed it for a while as long as he got his tablets at the exact same time every day, but then he started having fits again...he eventually died from a massive seizure, fortunately while he was at the vets :(
 
Hi I just wanted to say that our German Shepherd was diagnosed about a year ago at the age of 4, she has been on a low dose of phenobarbitone ever since which has managed it brilliantly. She has put on weight as she is always hungry and we do try and keep a close eye on her and this we think resulted in her starting to have the odd fit again. She has recently had her level of medicine increased slightly and once again is free from any seizures. She is well monitored by the AHT at Newmarket and our local vets who have all been fantastic - she gets checked every six months to make sure the levels in her body are correct. She is leading as full and as happy life as she was before and the only effect we have found is that she is hungry so have to make sure anything that slightly resembles food is out of the way! I think for us as the owners it is much more traumatic than it is for the dog themselves. Please feel free to ask if you want any further info and hope this helps to reassure you a bit :-)
 
We had a rescued Boxer who started having fits in his sleep at around 9 years old. In those days, there was no treatment but eventually he had a very long lasting one and the vet sedated him. He didn't come out of the sedation and was PTS two days later. I have learned recently that Boxers are prone to fits due to inbreeding and shape of head ect. Hope your girl gets well soon.
 
Hi, one of our rescue lurchers had his first fit a couple of years after we first owned him....he had to go into kennels for a few days while the other lurcher was recovering from a leg operation and couldn't be bounced on......the poor boy was so bloomin happy when he got home he got very overexcited and, like many of your dogs, fitted in his sleep that evening. Thereafter he had them quite regularly but not less than 4 weeks apart which was the threshold at which our vet would have put him on medication. He would often be incontinent as well and as time went on it became apparent that he was suffering a mammoth headache for the rest of the day after each one so he had an anti-inflammatory after each fit to ease the pain. It got to the stage as he aged that I decided to have him PTS if he had another fit, his recovery time was getting longer and the pain was increasing.....

He never had another one after that decision and we had three more lovely years with him!
 
It is for you to discuss with your vet as we don't know the dog.
However, the dogs I know with Epilepsy all lead basically normal lives, doing agility, Flyball, obedience, going for their normal walks etc, but obviously the owners keep an eye on them.(and of course they don't compete if they have fitted)

All the ones I know are on different forms and dosages so your vet is the one to consult.

Haven't fully read all the posts but if you have other dogs it is advisable to sepparated them when your dog is having/ recovering from a seizure.

There is some useful information on the web--some suggest diet control, some medication, some have even had success with natural remedies.
Don't be too downhearted--there are a lot of dogs with this and it is not the end of the world.

It is useful to your vet if you keep a written record of each fit. Date, how the fit manifests. recovery time, what the dog was doing before, how long recovery. what the dog was like during recovery.
 
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OP, I'm so sorry about your dog's seizures. It is very worrying for the owner. Unfortunately, I've had more than my fair share of epileptic dogs. When I lived in the States I imported several adult Norwich Terriers from the UK. Almost all of them were epileptic to some degree. Only two were ever put on phenobarbital. There is no question in my mind that those dogs had a genetic component to their condition (they were all related to some degree). Before the seizures manifested themselves, I had bred two litters. Several of the pups were affected. I never bred Norwich again. In fact, when my last one died, despite the fact that they are lovely little demons, I decided I didn't want to live my life always worrying what if. I never left my Norwich as an unobserved group. I found that if the alpha dog went down with a seizure, all the other dogs would roll up their collective sleeves and dive in. Whenever I had to leave the house, the Norwich were kept in extra large dog crates in couples. I never had a problem with that routine.

Regarding the dose of pheno needed to control the seizures, each dog metabolises the medication differently. One of my Norwich was on 120mgs per day because he needed that amount to successfully suppress his fits. Conversely, the other dog needed only 30mgs a day for a satisfactory outcome. Neither dog displayed any symptoms of lethargy or depression. (As an aside, I had a Golden Retriever bitch, who was put on 15mgs of pheno because she had a massive seizure when she was 9 years old. She was so sensitive to the drug that she almost drowned in her water bowl. She could hardly stand because she was so sedated by the very same drug the Norwich were on. Ultimately, we found out she had a brain tumour and had to be PTS). They both had 6 monthly blood tests to keep an eye on their liver function, among other things. They both lived to be almost 16 years of age (a great age even for an unaffected dog). They did have the occasional break-through seizure. What the medication achieved was to ameliorate the severity of the fit. Whereas the dogs vomited violently post seizure before being medicated, with the meds, that aspect was completely eliminated. Neither dog was medicated until, years into their affliction, they started having multiple seizures a day. That, too, never occurred again with the drug.

Epilepsy can be controlled, BUT, and I can't emphasise this strongly enough, you must have the support of your vet regarding adjusting the dose of the meds, and consistency within your home relative to whatever it might be that triggers your dog's seizures. If you don't have the luxury of knowing what the trigger might be (I didn't), you must make sure your dog is in a safe place if you aren't home. I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna about epilepsy. Some dogs cannot be controlled with phenobarb. There are other drugs, and sometimes nothing can help. I know several people who had to rely on trial and error for almost two years to come to a manageable solution. Don't give up. Good luck.
 
Our 8 year old schnauzer cross has epilepsy. We have had her for about 4 years and she has had fits in clusters ever since we have had her. They appear to be related to stress. She tends to have a few over a month and then none for several months. They last about 10 minutes and she doesn't seem to lose consciousness. The vet advised that she doesn't need medication at the moment. After a fit she is usually ok.
 
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