Seizures and Epilepsy

Please note that this page contains helpful advice and ideas on health related concerns and should not take the place of consulting a qualified D.V.M.  For serious illness, accidents or injuiries, please don't hesitate to call your veterinarian.

Sent in by Michelle C.

We have adopted several goldens with epilepsy.  Brewster was the first golden with epilepsy we adopted from GRIN several years ago.  He actually ended up going into status *, "the emergency" seizures that last more than 5-10 min and we had to rush him to the vet.  It took over a month to rehab him back to health.  I thank God my husband was in grad school on winter break when it occurred and he was able to be at his side 24 hours a day.  Brewster recovered from the incident but ended up passing away peaceful in his sleep several months after.  It took us awhile before we adopted another golden with epilepsy - always wondering if we had done something wrong for him to go into status.  We had a passion to learn eveything we didn't already know and the ability to demand certain things from our vet (Like Valium to keep on hand at home) before we were to care for another dog with epilepsy.

Being a nurse and my husband a dietician at the time we had done a lot of research of the topic and care required for our special need golden (or so we thought).  Brewster would always cluster when he had his seizures over a course of a few days.  We had read about the use of valium and had discussed his seizures with the vet on multiple occasions never pushing the issue to have some at home on hand, nor they suggesting the idea.  I always regretted this.  I URGE ANYONE THAT HAD A DOG with EPILEPSY to HAVE some VALIUM at HOME ON HAND.  We now have one dose at home that we can give rectally in emergency situations and have oral tabs as well.

It's best to try to keep a log of your dog's seizure activity and try to pay attention to discover potential triggers.  What was the weather like that day? How was the barometric pressure?  What was the circadian rhythm?  Did they get into something on their walk?  Did you just have the lawn sprayed?

We definitely started noticing triggers for our goldens.  On our daily walks we knew when one of the neighbors would put down their fresh fertilizer mulch mixture of some kind.  It must have been sweet to attract the dogs.  At first we thought they were just sniffing but then realized they would be drawn to the "taste" of it.  After it happened once or twice with multiple seizures following we put two and two together. Fertilizers, insecticides, or any kind of harmful chemicals can trigger seizures.

We also noticed that their food was a major trigger for their seizures.  You may want to avoid foods, treats, or chews with the following preservatives/ingredients:  BHA, BHT, Monosodium Glutamate, Aspartame, artificial flavorings, or artificial colorings.  We now buy all natural products and treats and our dogs seizure activity has decreased significantly.

The goldens we adopted all had been "worked up" (Brewster especially) short of having a brain MRI done.  Their was no underlying cause or disease process discovered.  I strongly recommend to try to track down what your goldens triggers for epilepsy are and to be aware of the medications and what side effects are.  We noticed that Brewster's seizures correlated with the time his monthly dose of Sentinel (his heartworm preventative) was given.  Even looking back at the fosters records of seizure activity and medication records this held true.  Being a nurse I know every medication has side effects.  After reading the insert it said may cause convulsions.  I had called the company to ask how common the side effect was and they couldn't really answer me.  I had read another article that linked this as well and it was enough for me to switch their heartworm preventative.  I'm not sure if there was a strong correlation between the two or not, but to have it listed as a possible side effect and to be prescribed under a vets care really upset us.  I know vets can't know everything so I urge eveyone to always do their homework.  I'm not a doctor either but have learned from my mistakes.  I'm just trying to share some information that may be helpful to others.

While doing our research we have stumbled across another helpful website for canine epilepsy: The Epi Guardian Angels

* Definition of Status Epilepticus from the Epi Guardian Angels Website:   A life threatening situation that is defined as a seizure lasting 5 to 10 minutes or even 20 minutes, which is an estimation of the duration necessary to cause brain damage. However, treatment needs to begin well before 20 minutes has elapsed.  A more practical definition of Status is a continuous seizure lasting at least 5 minutes, or two or more discrete seizures without full recovery of consciousness between seizures lasting at least 5 minutes or more.

Thank you Michelle, for providing a lot of very useful information.

On January 10, 2005, I sat down to eat dinner and my GRIN dog Lily was laying at my side.  She started choking, or so I thought, and I knelt down beside her to see what was the matter.  I couldn't see her breathing and my first instinct was to open her mouth to see if she'd gotten anything stuck in her throat.  Her tongue was blue!  Then I noticed she wasn't only choking, she was seizuring.  I racked my brain to see if I should do anything and thought "she could swallow her tongue" because I've heard that if a person goes into a seizure, you should prevent that from happening or they could choke to death on their own tongue.  Her tongue was still flat, facing front and not down her throat.  I banged on her chest with my hand and that seemed to get her breathing again.

I frantically raced into the kitchen to get my vet's magnet off the fridge and grabbed the phone to call them.  Thankfully they were still in the office and told me to get there as soon as I could.  Lily had stopped convulsing enough to get up and walk out to the garage to get into the car.  On the way, she lost control of her bowels, poor thing.

When I got there, two tech's carried her into an exam room and the vet recommended valium to help calm her, (they should've given some to me, I was a mess!) because by then she started shaking uncontrollably. They took x-ray's, blood and tried to comfort me they best they could.  I'd only had her since the end of September so I couldn't provide a very accurate medical history and I didn't know if this was her first, or one of many that she's gone through.  To my knowledge*, she'd not had any since the time I'd gotten her to that day in January.

The verdict was that she was healthy, no swollen innards, no obstructions, no anything and no indications that this could happen again.

What I learned from the vet that night, and through online research,