Maddie had a grand mal seizure tonight
Scariest 2 minutes ever. I was out on the deck, relaxing after getting back yesterday from vacation, when I heard my husband yelling that Maddie was choking. Actually, she was having a very dramatic grand mal seizure. Thankfully I recognized it and from some dim corner of my frantic brain I remembered that we should let her alone til she came out of it.
Jack was barking frantically so I crated him til she was done. She probably seized about 30 seconds or so, then spent another minute trying to drag herself to her feet, and then another minute or two bumping into things and nudging our legs. She then shook herself off and went and got a drink and spent another 45 minutes pacing and panting a bit more than usual (though she came for cuddles and played a bit and had another drink in there; and the fact that there was a huge fireworks display nearby probably didn't help). She seems ok now.
I called the emergency vet and they said we could bring her in for 24 hour observation, or keep her here but bring her in if she seizes again. They said either would be fine. Since the observation would be in a vet cage (I asked), I made the decision to keep her home, but I am not 100% comfortable with that decision. We have work tomorrow and we can come home a couple times and my mom will stop over once or twice, but she will be alone for chunks of the day. We will baby gate her away from Jack just in case.
She is 8 years old which seems too old for epilepsy. I looked online and the causes of seizures are widely varied. I don't think she could have gotten into poison (plus I think there would be other symptoms). She ate fine, hasn't been ill in other ways, and has been bright and alert since we picked her up last night from the boarding kennel.
Any insights would be greatly appreciated. :-( I am worried and a bit sad.
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08/12/13 update: Maddie seems to be her normal self today. Our regular vet was able to see us today. She did a bunch of posturing tests to check that all her neurological functions were normal. Also checked that her eyes had a normal response to light and that she had a normal flinch reflex. Her temp and vitals were ok.
They drew a bunch of tubes of blood to check liver, kidney, thyroid, and who knows what else. She says the test is mailed out and they should have the results within a day or so. IF the tests are all ok, then we just watch and wait. She says they don't usually medicate unless the seizures are more frequent than about one a month, or last ten minutes or so (the seizing, not the recovery which can be an hour or more).
Epilepsy this late in life is rare but not impossible. She says it's also possible she's had seizures before that were either very mild and went unnoticed, or happened when we were not home. I had already thought of that.
They don't suggest brain scans unless things get much worse; she said brain tumors are not all that common (and I get the idea the test is expensive). Since our neighbor recently lost their golden to a brain tumor that caused seizures, this is one of my biggest fears. However, the golden's tumor metastasized from a mammary tumor.
She also said it's ok to leave the dogs loose together when we are not home, since Jack is unlikely to attack her; he wants us to fix things when she acts weird.
I e-mailed her breeder last night, who got right back to me early this morning. She confirmed she is not aware of any of her dogs or pups she's sold having seizure issues. She has Maddie's litter brother at her house and he's fine. So I doubt it's something genetic.
I will update when we hear about the blood work. Thanks for all your concern.
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Update 2 08/13/13:
All Maddie's blood work came back normal--- thyroid, sugar, ammonia, kidney, liver, red and white counts. So all we can do is just wait and see if anything else happens. I am keeping notes of the seizure and if there are any more (and I hope there aren't) I will document them as well.
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Updated 9/14/13
Maddie had another seizure last night. Funny thing is, it was almost the exact time of day as the first one. No triggers I can possibly think of; she had a perfectly typical day.
We knew what to expect so it was not so scary for us, but it seems to greatly alarm the other animals in the house. I put in a call to the vet this morning. She was not in, and will get back to me on Monday. Last time, she said they usually don't medicate unless the seizures are more frequent than about once a month or so. This one was two days shy of five weeks from the last one.
It made me a bit sad, since I was really hoping the first one was just a fluke. The poor thing somehow backed herself behind a sofa (the sofa is diagonally across the corner of the room, so there is a fair amount of space back there). When she came too, she could not seem to see for a few minutes (this happened last time too), but instead of panicking and walking into walls, she wagged her back end like crazy and kept climbing up to get close to our faces, her nose going the whole time. It seemed to give her such joy to be by our faces that we got right down on the floor with her, but this made Jack bark and bark since it was such strange behavior for us. Poor girl.
The cat was very frightened and ran upstairs. Then she sat on the steps for some time and hissed whenever a dog came near. In the past few weeks, she has hissed a lot more than normal at the dogs; I think the seizures make her think the dogs are unpredictable and violent.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on
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My Standard Poodle developed this as an adult dog (I don't remember the exact age but he was at least 3). It is very scary!He was always fine after, just thirsty. Fortunately he had the seizures rarely ( About once a year) and lived to age 18 when he became too senile to have a quality of life. Hopefully this will be a rare occurrence for Maddie too!
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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Oh Beth, I am so sorry to hear this and can imagine how worried you are. Years ago I had a rat terrier that had seizures and she lived a good life with a small dose of med each am. She was alone much of the time and did fine even having an occasional seizure.
I support several people with seizure disorders with some only having "twitches" and others not coming out of them with out medical intervention. The hardest part is watching and waiting for them to end...it can seem like they never will.
My girlfriends Corgi would actually alert her to their older lab before the dog had them. He would run up and start licking his face or at least start barking depending where the dog was so they knew he was going to have one.
I think she will be fine alone as long as she has a safe place and can't fall down steps and that probably will be good to keep Jack separated by a fence but so that he can see her and visa versa. She could lose control of bowel/bladder also so you might want to keep her in an area that the floor can be cleaned easily.
She will be more comfortable at home too, I bet.
Good Luck!
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Permalink Reply by Linda on
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I went thru this with my male Irish Wolfhound. It is very scary to witness. Duffy took 2 blows to the head over the period of a couple of years. He slid down the stairs as a 6 month old puppy and went head first into the closet door at the bottom of the stairs. He was fine after that. A couple of years later I have no idea what the dogs/cats where doing...I was at work...but he must have been running thru the house...my kitchen table and chairs were rearranged....and there was a huge hole in the end of the kitchen island. He had put his head clean thru it...there was fur stuck in the wood.
Shortly after that he started having seizures. The vet gave him a clean bill of health, no fractures, but said to watch him to make sure he doesn't fall down stairs and to bring him back if they got worse, we didn't want to start medication right away. Duffy knew when they were going to happen and he would come find me. I would sit on the floor with him so he didn't stagger around and bang into things. He would be fine after, wanted to drink and then always wanted to go out after. I would keep him confined to the kitchen when I went to work but the only time he lost control of his bladder was when he had one the first thing in the morning...he woke me up to let me know one was going to happen. Life span for an Irish Wolfhound is 7-10 years...we lost him at age 7 and he had them probably the last 4 years of his life.
I would take her to your regular vet, maybe they can do x-rays to make sure she didn't get hit in the head that left a concussion.
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Permalink Reply by Abbey & Anne on
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Beth, I am sorry to hear that Maddie had a seizure. Years ago we owned a datchund, and she had seizures. Our vet told us that it could have been caused from low calcium, or potassium. He recommended that we give her TUMS. We did and she never had any more problems. I do hope that she will be alright. Blessings
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Permalink Reply by Jane on
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I'm so sorry to hear this - how terrifying that must have been! I'm sorry I have no advice but I hope she is feeling better soon.
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Permalink Reply by David on
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Sorry to hear that! Please keep her away from a pool. I had to recover a dog's body from a pool because she has a seizure and fell into the pool. It was a traumatic experience for me as a teenager...
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Thanks all. She seems ok this morning, but I hardly slept; my adrenaline was still cranking. The thing is, I've never seen a seizure before and while I was 90% sure that was what it was, at the time I was not entirely convinced she wasn't dying...
I'm a bit concerned because of her age; she's a bit old for epilepsy and a bit young for weird body chemistry things to be happening. Our neighbor had a dog with brain cancer and seizures were her primary symptom. I will update after we talk to the vet.
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Beth...I'm sure you didn't sleep much and kept checking on Maddie. It's very frightening to see it happen. The only thing you can do is sit with them till it's over. I believe they are aware that we are there with them. Duffy would come to find me and I just sat on the floor and hung on to him. And with a 125 lb dog that wasn't always easy but I do believe he came to me because he knew I would stay with him.
Many many good thoughts and prayers today for your trip to the vet. Please keep us posted.
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Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on
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Seizures are so scary! If I were in your place I would probably have kept Franklin home with me and watched him too and opted not to go to the vet for observation. Generally "seizure watch" is just a dog in a cage with a collar of bells around his/her neck so we can hear if they begin seizing. Only benefit is that if it is a longer seizure they can administer valium immediately.
For Maddie I think I would plan on taking her to the vet for some senior blood testing. There are SO MANY causes of seizures and that is generally the place they will start. Ruling out metabolic disorders is the place to start. Sometimes a dog may have a seizure and never have one again. If this does become a more regular occurrence however, the vet can put her on medications but will want that blood panel beforehand. How scary! I hope it is just a one time thing!
Oh and another thing, call the kennel she was boarded at and ask about her behavior there and if they noticed anything odd.
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The vet did just what you suspected. I was thinking of calling the kennel. I know someone who used this kennel and their dog got diarrhea while he was boarded. They called her cell to let her know they'd talked to the vet who recommended Pepto and he was on that and doing ok, and they did not think it warranted her cutting short her trip. They didn't even charge her extra for the intervention. So I suspect if anything weird happened they would have told me already, but I might try to call them tomorrow.
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Permalink Reply by Natalie, Lance &Tucker on
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So sorry to hear this, so scary!!
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