Epileptic Dog - All Advice Welcome

[JuneBalloon]

Am asking for a friend who has a gorgeous 2 yr old long haired vizsla with epilepsy. He was diagnosed about 6 months ago and fits every couple of weeks or so. The dots come in clusters and his recent batch caused him to temporarily lose his sight for a few hours. It's being closely monitored by the vets but is very upsetting for the family to see their gorgeous dog like this.

As you lovely lot have been very helpful with my own pet woes in the past I said I'd ask on her behalf (she's not on MN and is a bit dubious about joining, I'm working on her!)

She's particularly interested in hearing about alternative medication and dietary advice - but absolutely any tips would be very welcome.

My friends lovely dog is epileptic, and they are currently worried about his aggression, albeit totally understandable, when he comes out of a fit. It's the same for some humans. We've said that if they wish to rehome, we'd take him any time they want as they have young children and we don't.

Alternative medication, if you mean non prescription medication, is IMO a sham. We wouldn't expect a human with epilepsy to take drops of water as a solution, so should we want a dog to? Are they concerned about medication in any particular way?

Poor dog, it's crap for him and he won't understand what's happening to him.

We had a lovely cocker spaniel who developed epilepsy when he was 4. It took a while to get his medication levels right but eventually we got the seizures mostly under control without too much of a sedative effect. He eventually died at 14 of a completely unrelated cancer. I do know of a couple of other dogs where they couldn’t get the seizures under control and they both sadly died but that I think is relatively unusual.

I know you say she’s interested in alternative medicines and diet but as far as I’m aware there is absolutely zilch evidence for any supplements/homeopathic pills/special diets doing anything other than making money out of desperate owners...

@SilverHairedCat - sorry, that's my bad wording... what I meant was anything in addition to whatever the vet prescribes, for example cannabis oil.

My DS is epileptic but takes medications control his fits - was hoping someone on here has a magic formula which could do the same for their dog.

So @noitsnotteatimeyet, did your dog take daily meds to keep the fits at bay? From what I understand in my friend's case, they have sedatives to give him around the time he usually fits and diazepam to shove up his bum if his fits go on too long or he has more than 3 in a row...

Ah, no problem, I understand now!

Yes, there is CBD oil available for dogs, but it seems the mainstream meds are still phenobarbital, so not a lot of modern medication has made its way to animals.

Have they let the breeder know? It can be familial.

They sent her email as soon as they found out... but she never replied.

My df had a beautiful Irish setter who had epilepsy, they had a baby gate upstairs incase she had a fit and fell down. Took pills and had a long life.
Must have been over 30 years ago now, hope meds have improved for poor ddogs.

Yes he was on daily phenobarbital - it knocked him out at first but when we lowered the dose a bit he was much better. It definitely had a cognitively dulling effect, but he’d never been the sharpest tool in the box, bless him, and his fundamental happy-go-lucky character didn’t change. We were lucky that he was just zonked and woozy when he was coming round from a fit, never aggressive. The worst thing was the incontinence as he always seemed to have a seizure when he had a full bowel and bladder ...