Seizures - not a great couple of days for Marquez :( UPDATED WITH POSSIBLE CAUSES & TREATMENT

First topic message reminder :

So starting Tuesday evening until about 45 minutes ago, Marquez has had 7 seizures that I've witnessed throughout the day, possibly one during the night of Tuesday/Wednesday and possibly 2 last night from between 9.30pm when we went to bed until 5.30am when we wake.  The ones during the night last night must have been bad as he had peed his bed which he hasn't done before.  Yesterday we went to the vet and she gave my valium to put up his rectum during a seizure which I had to do on the way home at 11am when he had another.  The valium has worked very well in lessening the severity and length of the seizures and making his recovery faster but we still can't understand the sudden cause of them after his first 3 almost a month ago.

His checkup at the vet yesterday didn't come up with anything and he seemed fine but clearly something isn't.  What triggered this last bout?  The vets seem to think that my husband going away for a couple of days then coming home triggered them this time, just like it happened that first time when they started after we both came back from business overseas. We personally believe that the vaccine he had to get in the boarding kennel a few days before may have been a contributing factor as well.   My daughter and I are heading off to australia on sunday for 5 days so if he does get over the seizures today or tomorrow, there is a strong chance that they may start up again next friday when we get back.

So we've been trying to wrack our brains and trying to come up with other likely possible causes and the only other one we can think of is low blood sugar.  He's been eating raw for about 6 weeks.  He's not been getting any carbohydrates with his meat whereas before with his grain free kibble, he was getting sweet potato and chickpeas which was in there.  During this last seizure, I gave him some honey in the side of his mouth (along with the valium) and his recovery period was even quicker than the valium alone.

Other than getting further tests to check thyroid as well as liver & kidney function, we're at a loss at what to do in trying to find out the causes.  Just hope our boy recovers soon and that we find a cause.

That must be a bit of relief, at least the know the problem now and just need to get the meds sorted.

Hope he finally can get sorted Diane. Lets hope it stops the seizures when he is on the meds regularly. x

I really hope you can get him settled on some meds now Hun xx

Thank you for the links.

Firstly - I'm sorry and glad at the same time you have found a cause for the fits. I sincerely hope a treatment regime will work out well for you.

I had read some of the information you had found and I can understand your nervousness. I read it, of course, knowing more of my own situation with Gypsy than I do of yours. All test on Gyp are negative (we've not had the L2 HGA one - it doesn't seem to fit the bill). Gypsy hasn't ever suffered the "drunk" effect that others report but I can say it took 12 weeks to get Gyp stable on her current drug levels and that seemed like forever at the time.
I've got my fingers crossed for all of us

Morgaine wrote:Thank you for the links.

Firstly - I'm sorry and glad at the same time you have found a cause for the fits.  I sincerely hope a treatment regime will work out well for you.

I had read some of the information you had found and I can understand your nervousness.  I read it, of course, knowing more of my own situation with Gypsy than I do of yours. All test on Gyp are negative (we've not had the L2 HGA one - it doesn't seem to fit the bill).  Gypsy hasn't ever suffered the "drunk" effect that others report but I can say it took 12 weeks to get Gyp stable on her current drug levels and that seemed like forever at the time.
I've got my fingers crossed for all of us

Thanks - the thing with hypothyroid is that it is relatively easy to medicate and get under control once the dose is worked out. There are also a couple of natural alternatives available too like adaptogenic plants & herbs that I personally notice a huge difference when I take for my own hypothyroidism and also means lowering the dose of the pharmaceuticals. I'm hoping that once we get this sorted that epilepsy drugs won't be necessary.

I'm so glad that Gypsy never suffered the "drunk" effect and I'm sure that not all dogs experience it. Fingers crossed that she continues well on it

I've just sent an email off to my homeopathy supplier back in Aus explaining our latest discovery. I see they have a Hypothyroid Set available so I'm hoping that it will be suitable for secondary hypothyroidism. I've seen how well the homeopathy has helped with lessening the severity and intensity of his seizures since he started on them so hopefully the thyroid support will also help him

I was surprised how interested Marquez's vet was in the homeopathic products that he already used when she was here on Wednesday to take his blood. She took photos of the products and asked for the contact of the company that supplies them so I'm hopeful that if I get word that they have something suitable to help Marquez that they will support our decision to try the homeopathic treatment first

Marquez's vet has gotten back to me and they say that we should definitely try the natural homeopathy treatment first and to keep them updated once I hear back from the homeopathic vet back in Aus if this will actually be able to help with his secondary hypothyroidism.

As I am also hypothyroid, I take a thyroid support herbal supplement and after comparing the ingredients to the canine version, I've decided to start him on it as well (he's had 2 capsules yesterday and 1 dose so far today) and I'm not sure if it is a coincidence or not but his morning walk was much more energetic than ever before. He normally stops every 5 minutes and plops down and spreads out like a frog mid walk but he didn't do this at all this morning. He only paused twice to get a drink which is so unusual for him as well. I'll see how he goes on his afternoon walk and see if it is as good as this morning.

Will also be interesting to see if we will avoid seizures that we expected around the 20th based on his previous patterns.

That's great news Diane. Brilliant that your vet approves homeopathy as a first option.   

I have been reading this thread with interest and am so glad there now seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully now Marquez will be able to lead a normal life as near as possible. It must be as frightening for Marquez as it is for you when he suffers a seizure. I hope those days are a thing of the past when you get his meds sorted.

lumpydog wrote:I have been reading this thread with interest and am so glad there now seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.  Hopefully now Marquez will be able to lead a normal life as near as possible.  It must be as frightening for Marquez as it is for you when he suffers a seizure.  I hope those days are a thing of the past when you get his meds sorted.

Thanks Daz. It's been very frustrating not knowing what the triggers are but hopefully with the discovery of the hypothyroidism, treating that will finally stop the seizures. We still believe the kennel cough vaccine he had back in February was the thing that started it all as he had been us for over a month without any seizures and 2 days after that vaccine he had his first seizures.

We're so glad that we've ruled out stress/excitement of hubby flying out and coming back home as we're moving to Europe in a couple of months and he's going to be doing a lot more travelling and we were concerned how Marquez was going to handle it. I'm just glad that I thought to get his thyroid checked and it has picked this up. It was a long shot and I almost didn't as he doesn't have many of the "typical" symptoms of skin disorders or cold sensitivity but thought we had nothing to lose by getting it checked anyway.

Hopefully what we're going through can help someone out one day too.

It's a great thread actually, in sure others will see what you've been through and come to a quicker diagnosis because of it.

Looking forward to hearing how he gets on Diane... Fingers crossed for you   

-Ian- wrote:It's a great thread actually, in sure others will see what you've been through and come to a quicker diagnosis because of it.

Looking forward to hearing how he gets on Diane... Fingers crossed for you   

Thanks Ian. I really hope it does help someone one day. Unfortunately the vets don't always have the answers nor the time to do further investigations into causes of certain conditions. Fortunately Marquez's vets here are very open minded and have listened to my suggestions and ideas about possible causes and had no hesitation in checking his thyroid to rule it out. I especially love how they are open to him trying a natural approach before using pharmaceuticals to treat this too and want to know everything that we're doing incase they can apply it to future patients

After all my research in Canine Thyroid disease, I'm going to start another thread later on today with links to articles as I've made some pretty interesting discoveries that may benefit our members with dogs that have some issues particularly skin disorders including alopecia and sudden behavioural issues like aggression or fear that have all been related to thyroid disease.

http://www.canismajor.com/dog/thyroid.html
Canine thyroid disease can be tough to diagnose.The symptoms can be legion and sometimes contradictory: lethargy, mental lassitude, weight gain, dull coat, skin infections, constipation, diarrhea, cold intolerance, skin odor, hair loss, greasy skin, dry skin, reproductive problems, aggression, and more.

Megaesophagus that was recently posted about recently can also be caused by thyroid disease. When this happens in adulthood it is usually called secondary megaesophagus and can be caused by hypothyroidism. Other associated diseases and conditions to thyroid disease also include ruptured knee ligaments, testicular atrophy, cardiomyopathy, excessive bleeding, and corneal ulcers.

Maybe if any of our members are noticing some issues with their dogs that are proving hard to figure out or they're not satisfied by their vets diagnosis, maybe the links provided will give another thing to look into and eliminate.

That will be great, thanks Diane x

I can't be 100% sure but I swear my herbal thyroid support supplements are working on Marquez. We've been on more walks and he's been powering through them without stopping and he did this yesterday!



They were only very short distance runs but he continued to walk at a brisk pace after the hubby the slowed right down waiting for us to catch up so that I could continue walking him. Marquez has never done this before - walking was a hard enough job as he would always plop down mid walk but he just powered yesterday as well as this morning on his walk. We only tried those 2 little runs yesterday as we didn't want to push him too hard but the fact that he continued afterwards makes me think he's getting better. Yesterday he didn't sleep no where as much as he usually does

Oh I do hope so Diane! Sounds really promising   

What I've also discovered that can be useful for seizures if he does continue to get them is medicinal marijuana in the form of a tincture. I was reading an article about how it needs to be legalised in Australia ((this link) and how it's helped these kids with seizures. After googling it I found some interesting links in how it's already being used by some pets with success for seizures, pain management and treatment of some conditions. Even found this - Canna-Pet too.
Hopefully we won't need to resort to cannabis or hemp but I'm glad to see that there are other possible options especially as we're moving back to Europe very soon

Does look promising Diane... Great news   

3 weeks today and so far so good.

I've made another interesting discovery after I was cleaning Marquez's ears and I had a thought to google "ear infections and seizures in dogs" and was surprised to see that that can in fact cause them. What I also discovered is that chronic ear infections which is what Marquez had (it's now gone after using DermOptic) it's also a symptom of hypothyroidism! Looks like we are finally getting our answers.

Still not getting hopes high as it's only been a week he's been taking my thyroid support herbs so it should take a little while to take effect. His homeopathic support set has been delivered so hopefully our friend visits us in the next couple of weeks as he's bringing it over for us.

A promising start and interesting about the ear infections x