Epilepsy Article by Snorri the Priest

Wow. What a fantastic article! I wish I'd discovered it sooner.

http://www.dogsey.com/dog-articles.php?t=14937

It puts together all the research I've been doing in one place. It's well written and would wish that anyone who's dog is a sufferer finds this first.

As for me, we we've just had the worst day of our lives so far. Roxy's had a terrible day of fitting, depression had really kicked in. But after a visit to the vet and reading this I'm calmer.



I'll certainly link to this page in a later article as the content is wonderfully relevant and really want it to serve the wider masses.

Well done and thanks.

so glad snorris article has helped you, hugs to you and roxy

I thank you for your kind remarks! My late, lamented Snorri-dog had been fighting epilepsy for over 4 years, with some success, which made me realize that things were not as bad as they had appeared at first, so I wrote the article to try to lighten the gloom for anyone else setting out to combat it.

Snorri-dog died recently, perhaps from a stroke (he was 10) - whether this owed its origin to that which caused the epilepsy is totally unknown: we didn't get a PM done as we didn't want him "hacked about", just to lay him to rest as the beautiful wee boy he was.

Snorri had 7 years of fit-free life once he was on his meds, 7 years in which we could go on caring for him and loving him, which is all he ever seemed to want.

All the best to you and your Roxy!


Snorri

Warlord0 i feel for you and Roxy. Hope it is something you can control, remember your never alone here on Dogsey!

Well done Snorri!!!

7 years of no fitting is a great achievement. I just hope we can get the Epiphen balance right soon.

I was sorry to belatedly read about Snorri.

I never realised how attached you get to these darn things! It'd be like losing a best friend, so can only imagine. Today's certainly been an emotional roller-coaster.

I'm sorry to hear about Roxy. Does she suffer from clusters?

My dog began having cluster fits back in 2006 and they are of the refractory kind. We don't use epiphen but bromide - have you considered having bromide added to Roxy's medication?

We got Snorri's dosage right by accident, really! We'd heard that he could have grown out of it, so,on vet advice, we started to wean him off his phenobarb. (It didn't work ), but we did find that he could hold it off with half his prescribed dose (2x 15 mg), so vet put him on that. We saw no point in filling him up with chemical crap that he didn't need, and which might have been doing damge to his liver, etc.

Losing a dog, especially one for whose life you've had to fight, is like losing a close member of the family - agony.

Snorri

She hasn't had clusters. But yesterday/today has been really, really bad. So far we're up to 10 fits since 10:30am yesterday.

The latest ones have been really short and not gone for full body spasms. Poor Roxy's still spaced out though. She certainly isn't herself.

So far we're pretty early into it. They only started in November. I've spoken about KBr to the vet who initially thinks going with Pb should be the route. Next I guess will be a combination.

Good luck with Roxy, hope she is better soon.
My sons Collie was diagnosed with epilepsy about 10 yrs ago and although I can't remember the details she has been weaned off her phenytoin now and has remained fit free.

I'm so sorry to hear this. This episode is classed as a cluster, I'm afraid. I am very concerned that she has had so many - do you have any rectal diazepam to use during a cluster? These come in tubes to be inserted and are to help try to stop the cluster and reduce the severity.

If she's not going into the full spasm, she could be coming out of it on her own?

Forgive me if I'm telling you stuff you already know.

If I can help at all, please shout.