9 Comments on “Epilepsy Task Force”

1. Hugo, a Belgian Shepherd, at 10 months of age seizured. During the preceding day, the owner and the dog were at their new home for several hours while they were apply polyurethane to the floors. (I found out later that polyurethane contains the same chemicals as antifreeze). When I asked for the dogs medical history & blood work to forward it to an immune system expert, I noticed that the dog 30 days prior to that had been given vaccines and then neutered (which of course involved anesthesia). Dog was put on a potassium bromide regime, but continued to have grand mal seizures at least once every 10 days. Thyroid test came back normal. Finally, the owner agreed to do a Elysia test (yes, I paid for it) – it came back that the dog was “sensitive” to chicken. At my urging, they changed the diet to a salmon based diet. Seizures immediately lessened and within 2 months had stopped. Owner continued to give seizure meds for another 3 months, then stopped the meds.. The dog has now been completely seizure free for 18 months. (This is not a case of just not seeing a seizure, the dog is with one or the other owner constantly since they work from home). Bottom line, the young dog suffered a toxic insult while still in growth phase – it took time with no more insults for the immune system to recover.

2. Viper who hadn’t had a seizure since he was 10 months old, started seizuring again at the age of 8. The owner again tried the anti-seizure drugs, but nothing was working. I suggested she have the thyroid tested. The local lab results came back as thryoid normal. I asked permission to send the results off to Dr. Jean Dodds of HemoPet for her evaluation. The fax ink hadn’t dried, when Dr. Dodds had the owner’s vet on the phone with the words GET THE DOG ON THRYOID MEDS. The veterinarian who read the lab results didn’t realize that a false normal reading could happen when there is an imbalance of T3/T4/TSH. Viper got put on thyroids medications, seizures stopped within a month, and he was seizure free until his death. In addition, I learned it was wise to send the blood sample to a specialty school (like Michigan State, Tufts, or Cornell /or/ HemoPet increased the probability that a valid test was done.

3. I am a Belgian Shepherd breeder who stays in touch with puppy owners. At twelve weeks of age, the owner called me to say the puppy named Viper had seizured. My immediate question was what had they done within the last 24 hours. The answer was the veterinarian in one visit had given the 12 week old puppy a rabies shot, a 5 way distemper-parvo-leptospirosis shot, given him a heartworm pill with dewormer. Within 8 hours the puppy seizured. Not two weeks had passed and that one seizure progressed to cluster seizures. The vet recommended they destroy the puppy. Instead the owner went to my vet who had experience with seizuring, the puppy got put on first on Potasium bromide but that was too strong for him, and they went with phenobarb instead. The owner changed foods to a product with minimal preservatives. The seizures lessened. The seizures lessened in duration and frequency and finally stopped by the time the dog was 10 months of age. The owner never increased the dosage levels and got the hunch that maybe he was fine. She the completely stopped the meds. No seizures. In retrospect, I think the puppy got an immune system insult from all the inocculations piled on him in that single vet visit. So now I recommend my puppy people spread out shots, do separate vet visits separated by 2 weeks, and even avoid giving inocculations around the time they administer heartworm. I also suggest they not do a flea treatment on the developing puppy for fear of weakening the immune system. He was seizure free until 8 years of age. That will be a separate post.

4. Hi Jennifer. Thanks for sharing your experiences in response to my blog post. I’m sorry you are dealing with such a difficult case of epilepsy. I strongly encourage you to work with a veterinarian (ideally one who specializes in neurology or internal medicine- http://www.acvim.org) who has experience with other anti-seizure medications such as levetiracetam and Keppra. These newer medications are often effective at controlling epileptic seizures when phenobarbital and/or bromide have failed. Best of luck with this.

5. I have a 7.5 year old neutered male Aussie who expressed his epilepsy at 2.25 years of age. We have treated him with the combination of phenobarbital and potassium bromide since then, but we have never completely stopped his seizures and have had to continually adjust the doses upwards despite the side effects of incoordination and lethargy. He is now at the top of the range for phenobarbital before liver toxicity becomes an issue, and he is currently suffering from bromide toxicosis when an increase from 750 to 875 mg daily dose raised his blood level from 1 to 4.4 ug/ml over a five-month period. We have backed off his potassium bromide dose and are waiting for two months for the excess bromide to clear and will then retest blood levels and liver function. He was having trouble just standing up, but he still often falls on the stairs from the bromide toxicosis. His drugs and blood level and liver function tests are costing us $1500 a year and climbing quickly, and we still don’t have a handle on this. We’ve tested thyroid and it is solidly normal. I am very careful with his diet and exposure to chemicals and medications. It is heartbreaking. He is such a good dog… I don’t know what we should do next.

6. Grand Mal seizure onset in an intact male Belgian Sheepdog at the age of 4 and a half years. Within a month, he progressed to cluster seizures about twice a month. He was put on the combination of both potassium bromide and Phenobarb – medicated him 3 times a day so his dosages stayed as level as possible. Neutered him in the hopes that would help (it did not). Ruled out liver shunt, spinal tap did not show any anormalities,MRI showed brain liesions consistent with evidence of cluster seizuring. When he had a seizure, he had to be given IV phenobarb immediately within an hour of the first seizure, otherwise he would escalate to cluster seizures and continue to seizure about every 2 hours for 3 days. Monthly, he seizured consistently around the NEW MOON. ELISA food allergy study showed he was “sensitive” to dairy. Moving him to a lamb diet showed no improvement. However, once he was moved to a turkey based diet and not given any foods on his ELYSA “sensitive foods” list, the seizures started lessening in intensity and number. After having read that low thyroid could be evidenced with seizures, a thyroid test done at Michigan State when he was 8 year old, found he had practically no thryoid function – yet showed no overt signs (coat lush, weight excellent, alert, active). By this point in time, he had been grand mal cluster seizuring for 4 years. (Slamming to the floor, banging head during the seizure, salivating, urinating, no sight or hearing, rapid mouth movements even biting his tongue). Put on thyroid meds, the turkey based diet, and spread out any absolutely required inoculations (never more than one at a time), no cleaning toxins used in the house or on his bedding or crate. Within 3 months of being put on thyroid meds, his seizures COMPLETELY STOPPED. He was seizure free to the day he died at the age of 12 (quietly had a heart attack – I heard him say “Humph”, and I went over to where he had laid down next to my bed. He was gone – with a whisper).

7. I had a German shorthair pointer who had seizures. My doctor put her on phenobarbitol and she did very well on it for years. She lived to be 16 1/2 years old.

8. My Sheltie/dachshund mix got seizures at 10 years. Pheno and knowing to allow him to awake on his own, and recognize where he was got us thru another two years.

   Our Dobie cross began having “grand mal” seizures at 7 years. Following MRI, and evaluation at a specialty hospital. Diagnosis was unclear, a mass at base of skull, but no prognosis.I decided not to send her to Davis for six months. She was on pheno for 8 months but this provided minimal control of seizures. I will never get the sound of her screams as she seized out of my head.

   I am so glad this study is being done.

9. I’ve attached my web page on my epileptic Border Collie, Moss. I bred Moss myself, so it was particularly poignant to me that he developed epilepsy. He was 2.5 years old when he had his first seizure. Throughout his life after that, I kept a chart on all his seizures. I could find no pattern, nothing specific outside of himself that triggered them. He usually had them when he was at rest. They occurred randomely, and became worse as he grew older until at 10-years-old he went into status. We were living in NYS at the time and using Cornell Veterinary College for our vet care. They pulled him through it, but he went in again as I was taking him home, and I turned right around and brought him back. They pulled him through again, but said there was nothing more they could do for him. One vet, however, told me that for humans with epilepsy, Vitamin E sometimes worked. Up until then, he was on phenobarbitol, and then potassium bromide, for many years. He was extremely ataxic, and I believe he was mentally impared from years of medication and seizures. I immediately put him on Vitamin E and he never had another seizure in his life. I was able to back him off his meds, and he would have been completely free of them if he lived longer, but he died at 14 years of age of liver cancer in 1999.