It's 4:00 in the morning. Your dog is lying next to you in the bed, sleeping peacefully as she does every night. However you have a slight feeling all is not well and this feeling is why you are awake at such an hour, you ignore this feeling and go back to sleep.4:30 am, your beloved dog starts coughing like she is about to through up. Not wanting dog barf on your bed you quickly turn on the light and search for something to place under her chin, when all of a sudden her jaw stretches open further than you thought it could, all the muscles in her body tighten, her legs become ridged. Her breathing sounds labored. Your heartbeat quickens and you can't quite figure out what is going on, you go to comfort your dog but she starts convulsing and rolls off the bed onto the floor, and continues to shake. You are terrified. Your panicked screams awaken the rest of the household and no one knows what to do. You all stand there over the seizing dog in terror. Your dogs mouth is bleeding, she has bitten her tongue, and a pungent smelling foam covers her mouth and has saturated the carpet of your bedroom.
Then as quickly as it began it is over. It seemed to last a lifetime, but in reality was barley a minute long. Your dog begins to stand and falls several times, and she doesn't quite seem to know who you are or where she is. When she regains control of her feet she begins to walk around the house as if she had never been there before. A few minutes later she is back to her normal self again. Exhausted you and your beloved dog fall asleep on the living room floor, as the odor of the foam is still lingering in the bedroom.
Unfortunately this experience is something Ayla and I knew all too well. Watching your dog having a seizure is no easy task, and never gets easier no matter how many seizures you witness. However you do learn how to and how not to react. This page will describe my personal experience with epilepsy and how we coped as well as links to other sites with more information than I could give from my limited experience with this disorder.
The first time my dog had a seizure I was not home. My mother witnessed it and said it only lasted about 10 seconds, and took her about 3 minutes to return to her normal self. She didn't have another seizure until about six months later, it lasted slightly longer and took about the same time to recover. The first seizure I witnessed personally occurred when we were walking up the stairs from the basement. I looked behind me to find Ayla was not there, but saw her tail round the corner at the bottom of the stair case. I followed her to see what had caught her attention. When I got there she had all ready begun her seizure. I was only 15 at the time (I am 20 now) and had only heard my mother tell me about Ayla having the two prior seizures. It didn't last more than 15 seconds, but it was long enough to upset me quite a bit.
Since this was Ayla's third seizure my mom took her to the vet to have it checked out. The vet said that he couldn't find any underlying cause for the seizures and told us to keep a record of the seizures.
When we moved to Kentucky Ayla's seizure became more violent and it was decided the best thing was to medicate her. The most common medicine for epilepsy is phenobarbital.
Ayla stayed on a low dose for a year or so and then it was increased because the seizures kept coming.
In October of 2002 Ayla had 3 seizures in one day. At this point we uped her meds one again to 90mgs in the morning and 105mgs in the evening. We also added 1/2cc potassium bromide in the morning and evening.
The high doses of pheno started to take its toll, as we started to notice Ayla not being herself. She would go outside and start running and just keep going. She would run until she snapped out of it and often didn't know where she was. Luckily I was hot on her tail every time.
Between January 3rd and 4th she had 5 seizures. We had to baby gate the stairs and close all the doors so she wouldn't fall down the stairs. She was running into walls, she thought every thing was food. We decided that the best thing for Ayla was to send her on to the Rainbow Bridge.
On January 4th 2003 she crossed the bridge.
The following sites explain this disorder far better than I ever could. If you have a dog suffering from epilepsy I highly recomend the folling pages.
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