Our senior dog had a seizure last night

[Anonymous]

Our older dog is eleven and has pretty bad arthritis (takes Tramadol) but gets around fine. The dogs were cooped up yesterday because of the rain and only made little jaunts into the back yard. Around 7 I found him in the yard and was afraid he had fallen down a few steps we have so I carried him inside to take a good look at him. When I brought him in the kitchen and started toweling him off he went into a full blown grand mal seizure -- there was no mistaking it.

Talked to the vet on the phone last night. He thinks the most likely reason is probably a slow growing benign brain tumor. Has anyone been through this?

Wants to wait to put him on seizure meds to see how often the seizures are -- if he doesn't have another one for months, then we can wait.

Maybe other vets can weigh in if they read.

I just don't want him to suffer. After the seizure he wandered around the house pacing restlessly for several hours. He seemed confused and scared. Finally he calmed down.

[Anonymous]

First, i am so sorry - a grand mal seizure is so scary. I had a dog that suffered from seizures most from an accident when he suffered a head injury. He was put on an older anti-seizure drug (potassium bromide) after not doing as well on others. The drug was something I just squirted on his food and he did great on it for many years with very few seizures. I also received some diazepam in liquid form that could be used to stop a grand mal. Other advice is to give him a little bit of vanilla ice cream after he seems conscience from a seizure. This will help bring his blood sugar back to normal. Certain drugs lower the seizure threshold including Heartguard and some Vaccinations. One thing to remember is that the seizure is more upsetting for you than him. He doesn't know what happened and is just confused afterward. Hope he feels better soon!

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of causes for seizure. take him to a vet hospital and get a diagnosis, if you have the money and don't mind spending it on him. There are many medications that can reduce seizures but you need to know the cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our older dog is eleven and has pretty bad arthritis (takes Tramadol) but gets around fine. The dogs were cooped up yesterday because of the rain and only made little jaunts into the back yard. Around 7 I found him in the yard and was afraid he had fallen down a few steps we have so I carried him inside to take a good look at him. When I brought him in the kitchen and started toweling him off he went into a full blown grand mal seizure -- there was no mistaking it.

Talked to the vet on the phone last night. He thinks the most likely reason is probably a slow growing benign brain tumor. Has anyone been through this?

Wants to wait to put him on seizure meds to see how often the seizures are -- if he doesn't have another one for months, then we can wait.

Maybe other vets can weigh in if they read.

I just don't want him to suffer. After the seizure he wandered around the house pacing restlessly for several hours. He seemed confused and scared. Finally he calmed down.

I'm not a vet, BUT any vet who would tell you on the phone, without an exam or lab reports, that they think your dog has a tumor is incompetent and ignorant.

[Anonymous]

My dog is 13 and he had an episode a few months ago that we believe was a seizure. He was extremely confused after the event and just seemed like a shell of himself. He would be up for most of the night and wasn't responding to his name or commands he had been familiar with. Our vet said that we could go down the path of trying to find a diagnosis, which involved a brain MRI, or we could treat him with medication without knowing the source and see if that helped his symptoms. We started giving him Gabapentin at night and that started to help him sleep at night, but he still didn't fully seem like himself. The vet told us to increase to twice a day and see if that helped. I don't know if it was the medication, but he is fully back to himself. We've wondered what would happen if we took him off the meds, but at this point he's happy and comfortable and not experiencing any side effects, so we'll just assume they're helping him.

Good luck and I know how scary it is. It is such a terrible feeling to know that your dog is not him/herself. It broke my heart to see him just a shell of his former self and I'm so grateful we have him back now.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry. Our 13 yo dog had a grand mal seizure that (scans revealed) seemed to be caused by a stroke. She actually had a cascade of health problems originating from a Lyme infection, probably, and we had her put down a couple of months after the seizure. She didn't seem to have lasting deficits from the stroke or seizure, fwiw.

Good luck to you; hopefully this problem will be easily managed with meds.

[Anonymous]

I have experienced this. Our 15 year old diabetic dog started experiencing grand mal seizures suddenly. Same as you described... He'd start howling,, the vet said they can sense the seizure coming on... then he'd convulse for a bit, then he'd stare into space up in the corner of the ceiling for a while and not move. We rushed him to the vet. It was a tumor of the pancreas that was creating its own insulin and made him hypoglycemic. We tried to treat it, but ended up having to put him down as he was suffering too much. So sorry I don't have better news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our older dog is eleven and has pretty bad arthritis (takes Tramadol) but gets around fine. The dogs were cooped up yesterday because of the rain and only made little jaunts into the back yard. Around 7 I found him in the yard and was afraid he had fallen down a few steps we have so I carried him inside to take a good look at him. When I brought him in the kitchen and started toweling him off he went into a full blown grand mal seizure -- there was no mistaking it.

Talked to the vet on the phone last night. He thinks the most likely reason is probably a slow growing benign brain tumor. Has anyone been through this?

Wants to wait to put him on seizure meds to see how often the seizures are -- if he doesn't have another one for months, then we can wait.

Maybe other vets can weigh in if they read.

I just don't want him to suffer. After the seizure he wandered around the house pacing restlessly for several hours. He seemed confused and scared. Finally he calmed down.

I'm not a vet, BUT any vet who would tell you on the phone, without an exam or lab reports, that they think your dog has a tumor is incompetent and ignorant.

+1 How in the world do they get a benign tumor without an exam and diagnostics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our older dog is eleven and has pretty bad arthritis (takes Tramadol) but gets around fine. The dogs were cooped up yesterday because of the rain and only made little jaunts into the back yard. Around 7 I found him in the yard and was afraid he had fallen down a few steps we have so I carried him inside to take a good look at him. When I brought him in the kitchen and started toweling him off he went into a full blown grand mal seizure -- there was no mistaking it.

Talked to the vet on the phone last night. He thinks the most likely reason is probably a slow growing benign brain tumor. Has anyone been through this?

Wants to wait to put him on seizure meds to see how often the seizures are -- if he doesn't have another one for months, then we can wait.

Maybe other vets can weigh in if they read.

I just don't want him to suffer. After the seizure he wandered around the house pacing restlessly for several hours. He seemed confused and scared. Finally he calmed down.

I'm not a vet, BUT any vet who would tell you on the phone, without an exam or lab reports, that they think your dog has a tumor is incompetent and ignorant.

+1 How in the world do they get a benign tumor without an exam and diagnostics?

Meant - how does the vet come to that diagnosis...

[Anonymous]

OP I have a senior dog whom I've witnessed having one seizure, and it never happened again. Took him to the emergency vet, but by then the seizure was over and they couldn't tell me anything without lots of tests, which I declined. He seems fine now.

I had a foster dog with a diagnosed seizure condition. As long as she took her twice daily Zonisamide, she was fine.

Unless he starts seizing often, I would wait for your next regular vet appointment. Ask what can be done. Personally with an elderly dog I would do medications and reasonable accomodations (like, I dunno, pee pads in bed if they lose their bladder seizing) but I would not go crazy with tests, operations, etc. I respect that my beloved dog will die of something (as we all will) when nature decides, and I think it's better to expend those resources on saving more dogs, not costly and painful interventions for an elderly dog.

Dogs do get confused and scared about seizures. You can google and read descriptions of what it feels like to have a grand mal seizure. Imagine being a dog with no way to understand this medical condition

All you can do is be there for your dog, giving comfort after the seizure, preventing them from hurting themselves during.

As an aside my brother also has grand mal seizures and has since toddlerhood. He takes all different meds. Again, all you can do during a grand mal seizure is be there for the person. If it ever went on too long we would call 911 obviously, but for the most part, with his meds, just sitting with him during and after has been enough.

[Anonymous]

Take him off of the Tramodol for a little while.

My senior dog had an episode last fall. He had been taking tramodol and rimadyl for a while.

The vet checked him out, and there was no reason she could find. She did blood work. That turned up fine.

She said it wasn't the meds, but it wouldn't hurt to take a break from them. He had recently had his teeth cleaned, and it's possible the anesthesia combined with all of the pain meds he was taking regularly (tramodol included) went over the threshold of what his body could process.

Before starting the gabapentin, I'd take a little break from the tramodol. Do you give your dog Phycox chews? They help with arthritis.

The other possibility is that it is his spleen. You should see a different vet. For one giving a diagnosis over the phone is not good. Two, seizures don't necessarily mean brain tumors. I believe that it's actually far more likely to be an issue with the spleen (tumor) than brain.

A friends dog had a few seizures, and even then, the vet said to wait before going to the seizure meds because there are so many things that can cause a seizure. It could be heat or overexertion, etc.

I'd start with taking a break from the tramodol and finding a new vet

[Anonymous]

My dog is 12 and he's had seizures for 6 years now. I catch one or two a year. They're grand mal seizures. And then he's back being his normal self. I have no idea what's going on. I would operate on him though or put him through a lot of treatments if he does have a tumor.

Like someone said upthread, vaccines cause seizures in my dog. Last time I was at the vet, they told me that was silly and that no, vaccines don't cause seizures. But in my dog they do. We have a seizure any time we've had more than 2 vaccines at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I have a senior dog whom I've witnessed having one seizure, and it never happened again. Took him to the emergency vet, but by then the seizure was over and they couldn't tell me anything without lots of tests, which I declined. He seems fine now.

I had a foster dog with a diagnosed seizure condition. As long as she took her twice daily Zonisamide, she was fine.

Unless he starts seizing often, I would wait for your next regular vet appointment. Ask what can be done. Personally with an elderly dog I would do medications and reasonable accomodations (like, I dunno, pee pads in bed if they lose their bladder seizing) but I would not go crazy with tests, operations, etc. I respect that my beloved dog will die of something (as we all will) when nature decides, and I think it's better to expend those resources on saving more dogs, not costly and painful interventions for an elderly dog.

Dogs do get confused and scared about seizures. You can google and read descriptions of what it feels like to have a grand mal seizure. Imagine being a dog with no way to understand this medical condition

All you can do is be there for your dog, giving comfort after the seizure, preventing them from hurting themselves during.

As an aside my brother also has grand mal seizures and has since toddlerhood. He takes all different meds. Again, all you can do during a grand mal seizure is be there for the person. If it ever went on too long we would call 911 obviously, but for the most part, with his meds, just sitting with him during and after has been enough.

This is obnoxious and a slippery slope. I've had a lot of dogs in my lifetime. Some have lived well past what one would expect and still had a high quality of life, in part because I did tests when there was an issue and I provided care. I didn't just give up and say, "eh, he's old; money is better spent on other dogs." Of course, "painful" interventions are different. But there are a lot of tests and medical treatments that aren't painful, and it is really up to OP to decide what she's comfortable with. Blood work and x-raying the chest cavity to see if there's any indication of an enlarged spleen (which can cause a tumor) are not "crazy" or tortuous interventions.

Your attitude is in part why there are so many senior dogs at shelters and pounds. People don't think they're worth it, that resources are better expended on younger dogs. A year in a dog's life is a long time. Sometimes the medical issue turns out to be an easily managed issue, but you don't know until you do some tests. If it is an easily addressed issue and gives your companion another quality year or two of life, who are you to say that that isn't worth it, that those resources could be better spent saving "more dogs"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I have a senior dog whom I've witnessed having one seizure, and it never happened again. Took him to the emergency vet, but by then the seizure was over and they couldn't tell me anything without lots of tests, which I declined. He seems fine now.

I had a foster dog with a diagnosed seizure condition. As long as she took her twice daily Zonisamide, she was fine.

Unless he starts seizing often, I would wait for your next regular vet appointment. Ask what can be done. Personally with an elderly dog I would do medications and reasonable accomodations (like, I dunno, pee pads in bed if they lose their bladder seizing) but I would not go crazy with tests, operations, etc. I respect that my beloved dog will die of something (as we all will) when nature decides, and I think it's better to expend those resources on saving more dogs, not costly and painful interventions for an elderly dog.

Dogs do get confused and scared about seizures. You can google and read descriptions of what it feels like to have a grand mal seizure. Imagine being a dog with no way to understand this medical condition

All you can do is be there for your dog, giving comfort after the seizure, preventing them from hurting themselves during.

As an aside my brother also has grand mal seizures and has since toddlerhood. He takes all different meds. Again, all you can do during a grand mal seizure is be there for the person. If it ever went on too long we would call 911 obviously, but for the most part, with his meds, just sitting with him during and after has been enough.

This is obnoxious and a slippery slope. I've had a lot of dogs in my lifetime. Some have lived well past what one would expect and still had a high quality of life, in part because I did tests when there was an issue and I provided care. I didn't just give up and say, "eh, he's old; money is better spent on other dogs." Of course, "painful" interventions are different. But there are a lot of tests and medical treatments that aren't painful, and it is really up to OP to decide what she's comfortable with. Blood work and x-raying the chest cavity to see if there's any indication of an enlarged spleen (which can cause a tumor) are not "crazy" or tortuous interventions.

Your attitude is in part why there are so many senior dogs at shelters and pounds. People don't think they're worth it, that resources are better expended on younger dogs. A year in a dog's life is a long time. Sometimes the medical issue turns out to be an easily managed issue, but you don't know until you do some tests. If it is an easily addressed issue and gives your companion another quality year or two of life, who are you to say that that isn't worth it, that those resources could be better spent saving "more dogs"?

My attitude is in part why there are so many senior dogs at shelters and pounds? Lady, you don't know me. I adopted a senior dog with rotted teeth from FCAS. I have fostered 7 dogs including dogs with serious medical conditions requiring significant efforts on my part to help the dog(s). My eight foster dog, a 12 year old Chihuahua, is arriving this Saturday. Who are YOU to say what resources should be spent saving "more dogs"? Tell me what YOU have done to save dogs.

[Anonymous]

I aree with the poster who suggested taking him off of Tramadol for a while. Tramadol can cause seizures in people it may be the same for dogs. Ask your vet about another pain med if needed. I'm surprised your vet didn't want to run blood work. When my dog had liver tumors he had seizures due to the elevated enzymes.