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Sophie had Bad Seizure

4K views 28 replies 18 participants last post by  ArchersMom 
#1 ·
Our Sophie just had a bad seizure about an hour ago. I was on the computer and she was in the hall bathroom when I heard the thrashing as she hit the vanity doors and I rushed to her. She was stiff , her head jerking, mouth working,. All I could do was sit and make sure she did not bang her head on the wood vanity. I guess this went on a couple of minutes, tho it seemed like much longer. Once her head stopped jerking and her eyes came back to normal she seemed to be gasping for air so we put a large floor fan to blow directly onto her. She was totally aware we were thereband I rubbed her head and talked to her to try to calm her. I she was so scared.She calmed down and went into a natural pant.

I called my vet';s and talked to the tech who had helped with the tests, etc done Thursday. My vet is only there half a day Saturday. I described what had happened and she told me to wiat a little while and if Sophie had another one or failed to get up, call back and she would call my vet.. Sophie has bad hips and knees and the bathroom floor is tile. She struggled but could not keep her feet under her. We got her to her feet and into the hall where there is carpet and she was fine. Went right to the back door and outside. It appeared she had peed a little on her self, so we bathed her legs and tail. Then, perfectly normal she went to counter in kitchen were I keep their treat jar.

Sophie is 12 1/2 and we adopted her Feb. 17, 2015, 5 weeks after her 11th birthday. We came home from the store one day in Aug to find her blocking the front door--she would lay there waiting for us to return. She didn't respond and I thought she had died. I managed to get the door open enough to get in. She had pooped and peed all over herself. Her back legs would not work at all and she didn't have much use of front. I knew seizure or stroke. It took a while for us to get her up and out and cleaned up and by then she was normal. Vet said it was seizure. Then none that we know of except perhaps a minor one a couple of months ago. She was napping under the cedar tree and when I went out to call her to come eat, she had trouble getting up and had to be helped up. She fell a couple fo times walking to the door, but then was fine. As long as they are spaced like this she most likely will not have to be on any meds. But it is so horrifying watching her like she was today and not really be able to do anything. I know she did not know I was there preventing her from banging her head. She knows nothing then. But when it stopped and she acted o scared, she knew I was there talking to to her and rubbing her and her gasping to ease up and her breathing went normal. Tho I don't think this was as bad as the one she suffered a year ago. But it was bad enough. Good thoughts please,r old girl. By the way, she is happily eating her supper at this moment.
 
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#2 ·
Sending prayers this is the last seizure Sophie experiences. Good sign she is enjoying her dinner.
 
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#11 ·
Poor Sophie.. Hugs to you both. She's so lucky to have you . Do you think there's any connection to the rabies shot( if my memory is correct) that she had recently?

I had wonder the same thing. She got the rabies vax Thursday afternoon. this would have been about 48 hours later that she had the seizure. She had that apparent mild one a few weeks back and I know they got Bravto but I just can't remember exactly when they got it and when she hadthe mild seizure. Now can I remember exactly when she had the really bad seizure last August. I know she didn't get any vax as she had them in in Feb. I am writing down dates and info now so I will know and see if there is any connection. I was planning on starting her on Adequan, but now I am doubtful.
 
#14 ·
I'm so sorry - must be so scary for both of you. I don't know much about seizures - are they fully conscious and know what's going on around them when they are having one? I guess the only way we would know that is if we know humans can hear and see and know what's going on around them during a seizure - do they? I'm glad you were there for Sophie.
 
#15 ·
Everything I read says dogs do not know it is happening to them. BUT I am sure when they are coming around and are so weak and legs won't work, etc it has to be scary for them, not understanding what has happened.

I took several minutes for Sophie to be able to stand but she was responding to her name and our voices and was looking right at us. During the seizure her eyes were rolled back and twitching and she appeared not to hear a thing. She was on her side and throwing her head back with such force I was scared she was going to do damage hitting her head on the vanity door and I saw and prevented that, tho I didn't not try to stop the jerking. Once her head stopped jerking and eyes came back to normal she was gasping for breath--I think fear might have had soemthign to do with that, just not sure. But I sat and rubbed her head an talked softly to her and we put a floor fan to blow across her and she was soon breathing normal. She would look at me when I called her name.

Then when she went to stand she couldn't get up. The floor in there is tile and that didn't help, but I do't think it would have mattered. Her legs didn't want to work. She kept trying so we helped her to her feet and to the carpeted hall outside the bathroom and she was a little off center, but didn't fall. My nephew's wife, who had a blood hound with seizures when they married, told me that the vet told her that these seizures drove blood sugar down, so she would give Fred a little honey or little ice cream after a seizure. Another who had a dog with seizures told me to check out Occular Compression, it helped her dog. Another said to put an ice pack on the head, as their brain gets "hot".

All of this is new to me, a dog owner of 60 years. during this time I have seen and treated many different things. My English Setter, Duchess, was shot with shot gun by a crotchy old neighbor on next farm. Mama had not gone to church that day and we got home she was in tears. The pellets were only under the skin for the most part and I removed a couple dozen little pellets with tweezers. she had a couple that went thru her lip into her gums and I left them. Another time she grabbed my fishing line when I had her at the pond with me--and got the fish hook in her lip. I had to go home, push it thru her lip, snp it off below the barb and then pull it out. We treated cuts from barbed wire. Remember back in the 50's and 60's farm folks didn't keep dogs in houses and most of the time they were not penned either. Daddy took ours to the vet when he deemed they were in danger of infection or were ill. But otherwise we treated them. We had one pointer pup that got his foot crushed--we think maybe a trap, tho whey one would have been on our farm, we don't know. The vet had to remove most of Patch's foot. We had to change bandage every day and put cream on it. There would be dead fetish and pieces of bone in that, Would gag us, but we did the job. I tended to 10 that had distemper and despite vet visits and meds, lost both Beauty and Rascal (distemper vax were not that great back then, apparently.

Boots my 12 year old Irish Setter had bone cancer in his knee. Due to age and type of cancer, and that he had arthrosis, we did no treatment, just gave him the best 10 weeks of his life. Our first golden, Scooter dropped dead of heart attack just after 5th birthday. Honey was heart worm positive when we adopted her and we had to put her thru the treatment. Kaycee had to have both knees operated on for luxating patella. Hunter fought AIHA and dying liver after getting ProHeart6 injection. Honey ate a cub of d-con that was accidently knocked out of attic--a month of vitamin K plus 15 more days for good measure. Honey ate an entire leather wallet. Honey ate an entire leather glove. Buck was hit in the fce by a rattlesnake. Hunter and KayCee had allergies which caused horrid hot spots. KayCee had surgery for a mass that turned out to be a huge gastroinstestional stromal tumor and she died 498 hours later as I sat holding her on the floor of the ICU at my vets. Honey had an odd looking place on her leg, vet removed it, sent it off, grade 2 mast cell tumor, no clean edges. So more surgery to cut out a larger area of her leg. Clean edges this time. She broke the incision open and we went thru a month of daily flushing twice a day of the wound til it healed. Lost Honey to Lymphoma. One month and 10 days later lost Great Pyrenees Shaggy to hemangiosarcoma. Oh, Irish Setter Boots had also gotten a fish hook in his tongue on a Saturday--it was on a steel leader. We had to go to ER in Corpus and the hook broke on the way and they had to operate on his tongue to get the rest of it out. We still do not know how he got that hook/leader. KayCee had her vertigo episode that scared the daylights out of me. I thought ti was a seizure at the time. Was due to deep inner ear infection. She had a virus once and had to be hydrated over several hours at the vets because she had thrown up so much. Scooter, Buck and Honey were all on meds for low thyroid. KayCee had enlarged heart chamber and took a blood pressure med daily (same one Jerry takes, only her dosage was 1/4 of his) and a baby aspirin every other day. All that and I know I left some out . But seizures is new and scary to me.
 
#18 ·
3 Goldens, I think our farm dogs were a lot tougher than most dogs these days. We were a lot more willing to look after their health on our own. Like you, we treated all sorts of disasters with our animals and accepted the fact that some things were untreatable. (Vets also had less drugs and treatments than there are now.) In my case, we lived too far from the vets and our dogs never saw the vet. They never even left the farm.
Is Sophie still doing well?
 
#19 ·
I'm so sorry about Sophie's seizure. I've never had a dog with seizures, but my Cosmo had a stroke in April and it scared me to death. I hope Sophie is doing a lot better.
 
#20 ·
I hope Sophie is doing Ok today. How are you doing? I'm sorry you are going through this, seizures are really scary. Merry had some as a senior and they were difficult to watch. One happened after I gave her a toy, she had been ill and it was the first time in a while that she was interested in playing... she was so excited and then when I gave her the toy it must somehow have triggered the seizure. I felt like I had caused it, but I could not have know that would be a trigger. Merry was also not able to walk right after a seizure.

One thing that I did was to block the stairs so that if she had one when I was not right with her, she wouldn't fall down them.

Hugs

There are some very helpful links on this forum that have a good deal of information.


What to do if Your Dog has a Seizure (And Related FAQs) | SAGE Centers News and Events
Pet First Aid & Care: Canine Epilepsy
 
#21 ·
Sophie has been fine ever since she had the seizure. She was even being a silly girl tonight. I use the ceramic pot out of an old crock pot for the water dish--the water stays cooler in it. Well, Moose' eats next to the water bowl and he is bad about taking food out of his food pan and putting it on the floor and then eating it from the floor. Today some how he got a mouth full in the water dish.

Sophie discovered those pieces of kibble floating in the water dish and was putting her snout up to her eyes in the water grabbing those pieces of kibble and eating them. She would loo,, ears perked and then stick her head down in that bowl. Such a silly girl. But she got EVERY piece out...and made a mess on the floor with water dripping from her muzzle.
 
#23 ·
Thanks all, and KKaren, I checked out those links. Thank you for the links. Okay, call me paranoid, but I worry about leaving her. I really debated going to church yesterday, but since we would only be gone about an hour and 20 minutes tops, I did go and all was fine--n fact she was still sleeping right where she had been when we left.

But today we will be have to be gone about 3 hours. Jerry has a couple of hard bumps on the back of his had that need to be removed. He gets them from time and the doctor has to cut them out. I forget what t he calls them. Not a tumor but something else. Anyway, in certain areas of the hand I guess they press on nerves becaue Jerry has two that really bother him a lot. So we have to go to town this afternoon to keep the appointment.
 
#24 ·
Oh I'm so glad Sophie has been ok since the other day.

Hopefully she will just have a little sleep while you're away, 3 hours isn't an overly long time. I have been worried about leaving our Sophie-puppy recently too.

I hope things continue to get better!
 
#26 ·
So sorry to hear about Sophie's seizure. You may remember that our Harley had a seizure after taking Bravecto and I saw that you mentioned that Sophie had also had Bravecto. You might want to reconsider using Bravecto in the future as it can cause seizures in dogs that are susceptible to them. Fortunately Harley has been seizure free since that one incident. It still remains one of the most terrifying things I have ever been through. I thought we were going to lose him. Good thoughts to you and Sophie.
 
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