The last time I tried to brag about how long Katie had gone without a seizure (100 days), my blogging was interrupted by her going into seizure behind me on the floor. This time I waited a couple more days to be sure she was over the hump before cheering.
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PS: Added 12 hours later: What is with this? 12 hours after I posted this item about her being 102 days free of seizures, she has one! yep! 5:30am SUnday morning she started seizing. She was sleeping in her usual place at the top of the bed and woke us with her trembling. Overall, it took about 30 minutes for her to get through 2 bouts of rigor and the panting.
After that, she gradually settled into a calm with some swallowing. I got up to whiz and then came out to do some computer. Less than 5 minutes later, she wanted out here, too, and was pacing which is her way of walking it off. I took her out and she mostly just walked around with me but not stumbling at it. I had noticed a day or two ago that when she was walking on pavement I would occasionally hear the toenails on her hind feet drag the pavement. In the past, this seems also to be a clue she is getting close to having a seizure.
The irony of this is that as we were moving RV sites, yesterday, I had already disconnected the water supply and she needed water so Mer ran the pump to fill her bowl and bottle from the water tank….. which was still carrying only Raleigh water! Tell me, is that coincidental, too? She filled them through the filter, too, so if it is something in Raleigh water the trigger is not filtered out by this carbon block filter. The rest of the day she was also “edgy”.
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Honestly, since we left North Carolina, she has been a far more stable little girl in a number of ways. There have been a few times over these past weeks that she has seemed to be in "kindling" mode but one can never be sure until a full blown seizure actually happens. We have tried to anticipate by giving her an extra Zonisimide about 12 hours into her 24 hour dosing cycle. Whether it forestalled a seizure or not, we will never know but it sure seems that her pre-symptoms would fade in a matter of hours after the med.
Her prescribed dosage is 2/day but we found that she seemed to be seizure free on just 1 per day as long as special circumstances did not occur. These include her being shocked or surprised (like when sound asleep and a door slams) or when she gets too excited . Another component has frequently been when it has been quite a few hours since she last relieved herself. It's almost as if her trying to hold it somehow contributed to the seizure.
She often goes from 9 or 10pm until noon of the next day without asking to go out but if she does ask, we take her out right away.
We also went back onto the Canidae Senior / Overweight food she was on after her surgery. It has a much lower protein content and the doctors thought that would reduce the buildup of ammonia in her blood which leads to seizures. We had gotten away from it for vthe sake of variety but since she has been back on it, no seizures. But we have also not been in North Carolina for quite a few weeks so who knows what actually has made a difference. Could it have been something in the air or the water?
====================
Honestly, since we left North Carolina, she has been a far more stable little girl in a number of ways. There have been a few times over these past weeks that she has seemed to be in "kindling" mode but one can never be sure until a full blown seizure actually happens. We have tried to anticipate by giving her an extra Zonisimide about 12 hours into her 24 hour dosing cycle. Whether it forestalled a seizure or not, we will never know but it sure seems that her pre-symptoms would fade in a matter of hours after the med.
Her prescribed dosage is 2/day but we found that she seemed to be seizure free on just 1 per day as long as special circumstances did not occur. These include her being shocked or surprised (like when sound asleep and a door slams) or when she gets too excited . Another component has frequently been when it has been quite a few hours since she last relieved herself. It's almost as if her trying to hold it somehow contributed to the seizure.
She often goes from 9 or 10pm until noon of the next day without asking to go out but if she does ask, we take her out right away.We also went back onto the Canidae Senior / Overweight food she was on after her surgery. It has a much lower protein content and the doctors thought that would reduce the buildup of ammonia in her blood which leads to seizures. We had gotten away from it for vthe sake of variety but since she has been back on it, no seizures. But we have also not been in North Carolina for quite a few weeks so who knows what actually has made a difference. Could it have been something in the air or the water?
I am just grateful that she is not going through these life threatening seizures every few weeks. It is a relief for our minds and our hearts.
As for the future, we will see. It has usually been in the fall that her seizure frequency has picked up so we are watching very closely for any telltales that she is warming up to having another one. If she doesn't, then I am going to blame North Carolina, openly.
ttfn
Budd
1 comment:
We had a Border Collie that had seizures. I have read that it is in the breed. We were never on any medicine as the attacks weren't that often and never very long. We did think adding butter to his food helped, something about the extra fat seemed to cut down the seizures and he would go months between occurrences. We also found talking to him during a seizure in a louder than normal voice that he could focus on kept him in the "moment" so to say and his eyes didn't roll back into his head and the seizure was shorter.
Your Dog seems to be very lucky to have found such caring people to love her.
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