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What works for seizures?

5K views 35 replies 12 participants last post by  joro32000 
#1 · (Edited)
Our 1.5 year old Piper has had 4 grand mal seizures that we know of and we think a series of smaller seizures as well. The first was June 14th of this year. At first it seemed to be correlating to fireworks being set off but she had another last night and there hadn’t been any fireworks that we heard. In July we started her on flea and tick chewables and the next morning she couldn’t use her back legs. She had also had vaccines about four days prior to that. She had an allergic reaction to a bordatella vaccine as a puppy, so she gets just what is required and is given Benedryl before the vaccines. Last spring we switched her to the new line of Nutro dog food as well. I’ve read in a few threads that some dogs seem to have a problem with the nutro food so I’m considering switching her to a raw diet. Has anyone tried that and had it work? Also we are hesitant to start her on the drugs as they seem to have some pretty harsh side affects, and are considering CBD oil as an alternative. Has anyone tried the CBD oil, and if so which brand, and how did it work? We had her tested for the mdr1 gene and it came back negative so we are good to go with trying anything. This is so horrible to watch so any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
 
#30 ·
Well, this will be my last post here. Our wonderful golden piper passed away last night at the age of 2.5. We added Zonisimide to her phenobarbital starting April 15 to help manage her weekly seizures. Her seizures lessened but she didn’t seem to take well to this medication. She was very lethargic and wouldn’t eat anything. We stopped it on the 7th of May and her lethargy continued and we took her to the vet this Monday. Her red blood cell count was down to 12 so we took her to the veterinary hospital at the University of Minnesota. They kept her overnight and when it dropped further down to 8, they stated a blood transfusion. She rallied for a bit after that then they dropped again. We did a second transfusion and her RBC went up to 23 and stayed. Unfortunately she continued to decline from a neurological standpoint and she passed yesterday evening. We don’t know why she declined the way she did, but the vet believes that there was a chance she threw a blood clot to the brain with the transfusions. We had her scheduled for an MRI at 4:00 yesterday but decided against it when she went downhill so rapidly. Our hearts are breaking. We don’t know what it was about this dog, but she had a way of making everyone around her feel nothing but love. She was cherished every day she was with us, and for 2.5 short years she got to have an amazing life. She got to play with other Golden’s, swim in the lake in the summer, catch snowballs in the winter and sleep in very soft beds every night of her very short life. She was sassy and talked back frequently and we loved it. She followed me everywhere I went every single day. Our house is very empty without her. The U of M vet said that Golden’s have a lot of problems and that they are very overbred which makes me even more sad. We bought from what we thought was a very reputable breeder but I’ve come to learn that you need to pick a breeder that does extensive genetic testing and is very cautious about the dogs they breed. She maybe wasn’t born perfect, but she was perfect for us.
 

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#31 ·
Having a rescue dog with severe seizures which we ended up adopting, I wish I could give proper suggestions. We tried many protocols unsuccesfully. However, besides CBD oil, I will also suggest RAW feeding which we started with barf, converting slowly to semicooked and were thinking switching to completely to RAW. However, we postponed the % 100 raw since we plan to make him visit Europe in a couple of month with a vet university specialized in seizures. They also have a phone application which enables to track and meisure the intervals & strength of seizures.
 
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