Epilepsy

norma 308

Well-Known Member
Wife's German shepherd dog has had a couple of fits ,been to the vets and they are watching him for 6 mths no meds .
anyone had or have dogs that fit .shame cracking dog and I am really quite fond of him even though he is the wife's favourite over me lol .
kind regards
norma
 
Wife's German shepherd dog has had a couple of fits ,been to the vets and they are watching him for 6 mths no meds .
anyone had or have dogs that fit .shame cracking dog and I am really quite fond of him even though he is the wife's favourite over me lol .
kind regards
norma
my lab has three every year-: minor, major,minor for the last five or so years no other effects only a sorry looking scared looking dog after the fits.
its scary when you first see it but you start to notice the warning signs after a few you will be prepared for them

dw
 
Yes I found the same as redlab. I had a rotti bitch got to about 3 years old no problem then had a fair fit about 2 minutes long. (this is quite a long fit) then nothing for about 6 mths. Then she would have probably one a month. A small one 30 seconds or so then a big one upto 3 mins. If your dogs fits get longer they will get very hot as they are using a vast amount of energy. You need to keep her calm and cool her down. My bitch ended up having more and more, although bloods were taken and other treatments tried nothing made any difference or any reason found. Eventually the fits were taking so much out of her she was loosing weight and was visibly losing condition. She too knew when they were coming and would become restless and distressed. Unfortunately I had to put her down as her life was of no pleasure to her, she became withdrawn and lethargic and not the happy dog she was so hard as it was a long trip abroad forced the issue. I felt I could not leave her in someone else's care who would be out of their depth and may have had to make the decision in my absence. Sorry if I have shown a negative picture but I think there is so little understood about epilepsy that treatment is difficult and expensive if it works at all. I hope the fits stay short and infrequent and she continues to enjoy life.
 
Epilepsy is common and usually easily managed. There can be complicated cases, but most dogs can be adequately stabilised and return to a perfectly normal life, even work. This is quite a lot know about it - much of the information carried over from people.

The medication isn't expensive. A 25kg dog would start treatment maybe one tablet twice daily and that is well under 50p/day. Yes there may be bloods needed to rule other things out, and occasionally to check the adequacy of the dose, but you should budget for vet costs or have pet insurance. Epilepsy is not one of the expensive diseases to manage, unless you are very unlucky and end up on some human medication!

Assuming the dog is young then idiopathic epilepsy most common, it's often bad news when an older dog has seizures.

Occasional seizures are ok so long as the dog recovers quickly. Even when treating you will get some. What we don't want to happen is leave the dog untreated and it will keep having more and more seizures. My simplistic explanation is driving - it takes a lot of mental effort the first time you drive a car, but the more you drive the easier it is and the less of your conscious brain is required - same with the fits. Each fit makes it a little bit easier for another one to happen. You need to keep a diary. Your vet may prescribe something you can have at home to help bring the dog out of a fit, but that is between you and them.

Good luck.
 
hi apache,
are there any tests that can be done on a dog to tell if it will suffer from this illness at any point in its life, the reason i ask is that with all this talk of BMH from certain lines/kennels having the possibility to develope this maybe people may wish to check there hound before breeding from them.
kind regards
jimmy
 
hi apache,
are there any tests that can be done on a dog to tell if it will suffer from this illness at any point in its life, the reason i ask is that with all this talk of BMH from certain lines/kennels having the possibility to develope this maybe people may wish to check there hound before breeding from them.
kind regards
jimmy

To the best of my knowledge, no.
 
Thank you guys ,I am sure the wife won't mind but she is also epileptic although not had a seizure in years the dog now three and a half has had two in about 6 wks .
Hopefully the boy won't get too serious as he is the wife's baby even though we have 4 dogs ,I will keep you informed of any further developments .
lucky really the wife's dogs are insured so should he need expensive tests Ect he's covered .
kind regards
norma
 
My Cocker (See avatar, left) was diagnosed at about a year old. It was controlled with meds for all of her working life, doing up to 40 days beating a year. I understand that the medication (phenobarbitone) can cause liver damage in dogs and Bandit was PTS suffering from suspected liver cancer at the age of 12. Even so she had a full active life and was working right up to the end.
As per Apache's post, diagnosis and treatment isn't expensive - at least it wasn't at my vet's!
 
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