epilepsy in pets any experience?

[SheSellsSeashellsByTheSeashore]

our dog ahs just been rushed to the vets after a fit. she is otherwise fit and healthy they checked her temp and how hydrated she was and that was all fine.

the vet says the next obviuos thing is epilepsy. she has a blood test on monday to confirm and low dose diazapan for over the weekend.

has any one elses pet had this? how often do you need to see your vet? how often are they medicated and do they fit often?

we are insured with healthy pets who have an ongoing illness clause so im not too worried about cost, but am panicking that they wont renew her policy could they do this?

Ongoing Illness cover is just that - they can't not renew just becaouse you have claimed. We have used these policies before when our dogs get old. Our present dog now needs permanent arthritis type medicine and it is fully covered year on year (Pet Plan).

No experience with epilepsy though - apart from a gerbil who used to fit occassionally but think it had a growth on it's brain which eventually burst

ah good i was worried about that. also worried about dd1. the vet said the dog needs to be kept calm and dd1 has a habit of being nasty towards her or over exciting her. if this causes fitting i will have to rehome the dog can i transfer the policy to the new owners?

We used to have an epileptic cat. He was a gorgeous little cat who only ever had fits in his sleep. He was prescribed diazapam and valium at one point but they made him dozy and very randy lol so we discontinued them and he was fine. He used to have them maybe once every couple of months.

Aside from his fits he was in very good health. We always kept him in a quiet room after his fits and sat with him until he came round sufficiently enough to walk around. We also used to feed him straight afterwards as he was always ravenous after he had had a seizure. The main thing is to stay calm and to remove anything that may cause harm whilst fitting. Don't worry though - it can be controlled and she should be fine

oh god she is randy enough as it is. the poor cat will get no peace now. i wonder what a cat dog would look like

dh has epilipsy so there was no panicking. she came round straight away but has been quieter and fussier than normal.

My vets tend to ask clients to keep a seizure diary before prescribing medication as its very common for them to be one off. A seizure diary needs to be a record of how long it lasts, what they do (paddling legs, losing bowel/bladder control etc) what they were doing before it occured and how they were after) and is ususally kept for a week or so. I'd be inclined to ask your vet about this rather then diving straight into medication because it might be she only has them once a year, or something easily controlled by avoiding certain easy triggers.

well she had one a few months ago. he asked about that. but no mention of any diary. ill ask on monday.

its just happened again. dh has made a note of the time/symptoms and ill phone the vets again in the morning.

the dog appears to be scared and disorientated afterwards. she is having a hig with dh atm. i just hope it is nothing too serious dd1 adores the dog. as do the rest of the family.

Sorry to hear that SSSSBTS. Not sure if it helps but epilepsy can come on at any time in both animals and humans. My friend at work started suffering from epilepsy at 21 without a prior history at all.

Is she awake when she starts? How old is she?

We've got an 8 year old toy poodle that has fits. The trigger is water on her head/neck. We first noticed her fit when we gave her a bath at home and then the dog groomer said that she'd started to have fits when she was bathing/clipping her. Fortunately our groomer works from our local vets surgery so was able to get her checked out immediately.

We now try to avoid her getting wet - not easy as we were out with her the other day when there was a downpour and she had another fit almost immediately.

She isn't on any medication as we've worked out the trigger for the fits. She recovers quickly and is fine afterwards but it's scary when it happens.

The fits only started about 18 months ago; prior to that she was fine. We have no idea why they started.