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 Beth on
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She seems fine. To the best of my knowledge she has not had another seizure and is her normal busy self. I think it was harder on me and Shawn than on her. I do worry though because she's sometimes home with just ht other pets for several hours, so what if we miss something?
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Permalink Reply by Suzanne on
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Good to hear she is still okay Beth. I'm sure it is really stressful for you guys. Hopefully it was a one time thing and she will be fine.
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Permalink Reply by Linda on
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Glad to hear she is feeling better. I understand worrying about when you aren't home. I was working full time when Duffy had them. I always figured a dog that large would leave some kind of evidence that he had one while I was gone but I never saw any.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Payerl on
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I'm sorry to read that Maddie had a seizure. Sophie has had epilepsy for about 7 years now. It is SO scary the first few times you have to watch your buddy go through one. It's not quite a scary for us now, but it still makes us sad. Here are some facts I have learned over the years from experience and from a list-serv I belong to for seizure dog support. I am not giving medical advice, just sharing information; follow your vet's advise if you are comfortable with him/her.
-Clusters require a visit to the vet or ER ASAP. Clusters can take 3 forms --- a seizure that goes on for more than 5 minutes without a break; seizures of less than two minutes in length that happen one right after the other with short breaks between; or three or more seizures within a 24 hour period, even if hours apart.
-Keep a log with the date, time and length of the S (they seem longer than they really are), what the dog does during (thrashing, paddling, shaking, etc.), what she did before and for how long and how far ahead of the seizure (staring, walking into a corner, shaking, etc.), and what she does after and for how long (pacing, panting, etc.) Some dogs can be temporarily blind / deaf/ can't smell after a seizure, so it is very confusing for them and they may be clingy and whiney, poor babies. Sophie wanted to snuggle after hers and would fall asleep in my lap.
-If you have to leave the dog alone, be sure it is in an area where there are no stairs, no water, no high furniture to climb onto, etc. Also, a hard surface floor will make it easier on you as she may lose bladder / bowel control and might bite her lips / tongue and send bloody drool flying (Sophie did this a few times and it scared the daylights out of me seeing blood on the walls).
-Keep other dogs away; some dogs have a tendency to attack if they see another dog acting strangely, even if it's a dog they know.
-A seizure does not hurt the dog. Sophie used to "scream" while having one and it broke my heart to hear it but it is just involuntary contraction of the vocal muscles, just like the involuntary contraction of the other body muscles.
-Some dogs have pre-ictal (before seizure) signs and if you see them, you can get ready for a seizure. Not all dogs have these, though. Some people who can see the signs can head off a seizure by placing a bag of ice on the dog's lower back, just above the hips. This never worked for Sophie.
-Some dogs have predictable triggers and if you prevent access to those triggers, you can lessen the chance of a seizure. Sophie used to have one every time we got together with his cousin's dogs, so we quit bringing her with us when we went to their house, and asked them to stop bringing their dogs to our house. Hopefully Maggie will not have another one, but if she does, make note of what happened the day before, earlier in the day, right before the S started, etc. Include weather info (Sophie has them if she gets too hot), noises, smells (cooking, chemical, etc.), things she ate (both given to her and things she may have found outside, if you know). Some people can figure out what to avoid; we were never able to figure out all of Sophie's triggers, but did reduce her exposure to cousin's dogs and walks during heat, which helped a lot.
-Some dogs have trouble with food ingredients: grains, rosemary, turkey are some of the common ones that some dogs react to.
-Changing the feeding schedule can help even out the blood sugar levels throughout the day. Feed the same amount total per day, but divide it into three portions. This helped Sophie a lot; she'd always have her S's between 3:00 -6:00 a.m when her tummy was empty and blood sugar low.
-A S uses up as much energy as running hard, so after she comes to and is alert and aware, you may want to feed her a little bit of food to replenish her blood sugar. Be careful not to let her eat and drink too soon as she might not have full control of her muscles and can aspirate water and food, which can lead to pneumonia.
-Don't be afraid of medications if it turns out Maggie has more. They can really help stop the seizures and give the dog a good life. You may need to tweak dosages and kinds of medicines to get the right one(s) but you don't want her to have more Ss; the more Ss she has, the more her brain "learns" to have Ss (kindling).
Sorry this is long, but I wish someone would have told me all of this info when Sophie started having Ss. Good luck!
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Chris, thank you so much for all the tips. I am of course hoping it was a one-time thing. I did take careful notes of her seizure, and the vet also advised me to keep a record. We don't have water around. Stairs are an issue but there is no easy way to gate them so I'll worry about that if she has any more.
I'm sorry Sophie has had so many. :-( It sounds like you are going above and beyond to give her the best possible life and you deserve tons of credit for that.
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Chris...that is excellent information to have. I'm sorry that Sophie has them but it sounds like you have worked hard to help her and give her an excellent qulaity of life.
We never knew what triggered Duffy's but he seemed to know when he was going to have one. He would seek me out and stayed glued to me. Within minutes it would happen. I would just sit on the floor and hang on to this 125lb dog so he didn't hurt himself or destroy anything.
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Thanks, Linda. It has been an emotional journey, to say the least! There were lots of times when we thought we finally had it licked and then she'd blow anotehr S, sending us back to square one. We had a great vet--- who has since moved away - :o( --- who was so kind and patient with Sophie and with us. Itend to get very emotional when something is wrong with my girl and he was always so kind in "talking me down". We will miss him! Luckily for us, Sophie's Ss have all been fairly short and she has come out them well. She did have one cluster about 2 years ago which resulted in a trip to the ER. In a way, it was a blessing in disguise because she had been having all sorts of odd behaviors/symptoms and when the ER vet and our regular vet consulted and suggested adding phenobarbital to her potassium bromide, it did the trick and all the other weirdness stopped. I could kick myself for not thinking of that sooner, but it is what it is and she is doing great now. Her last S was the end of July and she had gone nearly two years without any before that. I am confidently hopeful that we will have another two year (or longer!) S-free spell.
After re-reading what I posted before, when I said to keep the dog in an area without water, I meant a pond, pool or anything she could drown in. Of course the dog should have access to drinking water.
Also--DO NOT put a cold towel or splash cold water on the dog while or right after a seizure. That can send her into shock.
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Chris...lots of good thoughts and finger crossing that she goes thru a long period of time without another one. Thankfully Duffy's weren't frequent and didn't start till later in his life. Irish Wolfhound have much too short life spans, 7-10 years. We lost him at age 7 so it was only about 2 years that he had them.
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Beth-
Any more news about Maddie? Hopefully nothing else will happen.
Linda-
I can't imagine what it is like to have such a large dog thrashing around! YIKES!
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Chris....thankfully the worst with Duffy was that he would stand there and shake and drool. He would try to walk as they got near the end and then I would have to hang on to his collar for dear life.
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Update in the main article above. Madison had another seizure last night. After much discussion, we stuck to our original plan and took the dogs hiking today (nothing major, only about a mile and a half on slightly rolling terrain). It made her tremendously happy and the vet did say to try to keep her life as normal as possible.
I will update again after I hear from the vet.
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Oh Beth....I was so hoping that it was a one time thing. I never found a trigger for Duffy either. Search your brain to see if there was anything she did that might be just a bit off just before it began. You may not remember from the first time since it was such a shock but if you think of anything(s) write them down. If she has another one down the road again think back to see if there was anything she did just before..an odd action she might have made. You might be able to find a clue that one is going to happen and reach her in time to just hold her. Somehow Duffy knew when it was going to happen and he always came looking for me.
It is upsetting for the other animals. Rascal use to get upset and try to push his way to me but my husband would distract him and if he wasn't home thankfully Rascal was trained enough that I could make him go lay down. Cats don't like unpredictable behavior. Frankly, if it becomes something that happens the cat will adjust and it will become normal....my 3 did.
Again, I am so sorry. Please let us know what the vet says.
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