25 days-seizure free!

Murphy seems to have found a dose of phenobarbital that works for him. this is the longest he's gone without a seizure this year! D and little D have both been out of town since July 23rd, so A is home alone, taking care of Murphy. He reports that Murphy is really happy when he gets home from work. He seems healthy and perky.

getting ready for changes

Murphy continues to be happy, pain free, and seizure free. Clumsy, sure, but no indication of suffering. Tomorrow is a big day for our family. D and little D are both traveling away from home for awhile. A & M will keep watch over Murphy. He's been watching us pack. In fact, he's sleeping right next to my suitcase tonight. This means he'll be spending more time alone and outside for the next few weeks. It's a lot like our normal work/school schedules from September - June, so he'll probably be fine. Little D wants to know if Murphy has had a seizure while he's gone, so he'll have more motivation to call home while he's gone. We still haven't figured out which vitamins he needs for liver support. When I look online, I just find ads for selling herbs; it doesn't seem credible. I need to call Dr. E to get his advice, I guess.

Murphy looks great!

Still no seizures since July 5. Today Murphy visited the groomer for a summer haircut. The groomer noticed he was a little clumsy, but very well behaved. He had a lot of difficulty moving around in the car because there are so many things to step over. He now hesitates before jumping into the car. However, when I picked him up from the groomer, he jumped right in. At home, Murphy seemed happy, but continued falling down occasionally. Sometimes he'll fall down while walking and just stay how he landed for a few minutes. He acts like the floor is more slippery than it used to be, and he's too tired to get back up right away.
His haircut looks great!

2 weeks seizure free!

Murphy's last seizure was on Saturday, July 5, so he's made it past the 2 week period. His seizures have averaged two weeks apart, so this is a critical time. If he goes another week without a seizure, that will be a record for the time period from May - July. Then we can start believing that his medicine is controlling the seizures. For now, we sort of hold our breath. Tomorrow, Murphy will get groomed. This is the same as being kennelled for a day, in smaller quarters. We have concerns that kennelling may trigger seizures for him, but we don't have real evidence. The timing is unfortunate. Meanwhile, he continues to slide around and fall down as he follows us around the house. It sounds terrible, but as we are living it, he seems too full of life to consider euthanizing.

seizure management, Spring & Summer 2008

Murphy has now had 7 seizures since May 2008. They are occuring every 1-2 weeks, regardless of increasing amounts of medication. Murphy now takes phenobarbital twice a day and potassium bromide once a day. We have increased his medicine after each seizure, following the advice of his vet, Dr. E. His last seizure happened while we were on vacation. We believe that kenneling him may trigger seizures, so we took him with us. He had a seizure at midnight in our hotel room. Luckily, there was nothing to clean up this time. That was one week ago. We are seeing side effects of the phenobarbital. Murphy sleeps more and wants to eat all the time. We have to keep all food put away or he gets into it no matter who's watching. His movements are clumsy, and he seems to be losing strength in his back legs. He falls down a lot. Even so, he can still run down the hall after a tennis ball without wiping out. That's pretty amazing. Dr. E. recommended keeping a valium syringe on hand to give him following each seizure. This prevents him from having a cluster of seizures. Each time we use it, we have to get it refilled. It costs about $30. We have spent hundreds of dollars on his treatment this year. We have had family discussions now about Murphy's quality of life. We believe he is still very happy most of the time. Following each seizure, he becomes temporarily insane for about an hour: he must pace through the house, even if his legs are weak from the valium. He checks the shower and garage everytime. He will not settle down and knocks things over by mistake. When this happens in the middle of the night, it's frusterating. Tomorrow I need to look into supplements for liver support, because of the risks of liver damage from the medicine.

Seizures start again March 2008

After about a year with no seizures, Murphy has started having seizures again, about 2 weeks apart. Each seizure has been about 2 minutes long, although one was closer to 3 minutes. It has become standard procedure in our family to call out "seizure", which gets everybody in gear. One person stays with Murphy, everyone else brings a towel as quickly as possible. His seizures have evolved some. They now include more violent biting, anal gland expression, and urination. We use towels to protect his head from banging on the floor as well as to absorb the mess. Sometimes, there is no mess. He frequently bites his own tongue, and D got bit on the arm once while trying to protect his tongue. We don't do that anymore. Nearly every seizure has occured in the kitchen. We suspect he has also had at least one seizure outside when the rest of us weren't at home.

Meet Murphy

The seizures stop, January 2007

The dosage was calculated based on Murphy's body weight (50 lbs.) Since the first dose of potassium bromide, Murphy's seizures stopped. There is some disagreement in our family about whether we should continue this much medicine or try to back off to the smallest amount that is effective most of the time. Dr. C is encouraging us to continue at the same dose and will check the level of medicine in his blood after one month to be sure it stays at a "therapeutic" level. I think this will be an ongoing conversation between us and the doctor because we worry about keeping Murphy on medication forever.

meeting with the vet

At our first meeting with the vet, I described Murphy's seizures, and the vet reviewed many of the things I had read online. They took a blood sample to check for obvious problems that might be triggering seizures. We talked about medication. I explained my concerns about phenobarbital, and asked about potassium bromide. Our vet had previously used the two medications together because the p.b. enhances the effectiveness of phenobarb, apparently. She had heard of using p.b. alone and was willing to try this with Murphy. We agreed to fill the prescription immediately. It is a compounded medication, so we go to a special pharmacy and keep it refrigerated. It is a beef-flavored liquid that can be squirted into the dogs mouth with a small syringe. Ironically, this method of administration made Murphy shake his head like crazy, which scared us, so now we squirt it on a small piece of bread, which he gobbles up.

blogging about dog seizures

We decided to blog about what it's like to live with a dog who suffers from seizures. We're going to follow his progress, and our attempts to make the best choices for him as his condition changes. I'm posting previous events in this process as best as I can remember them to make the story coherent. I'm D, and I'll be posting most of the time. My son, little D would like to participate, as well.

searching the web for "dog seizures"

After his first two-minute seizure, we searched for information about dog seizures on the internet. We discovered that the paddling motions are typical of canine Grand Mal seizures. Apparently, individual seizures can make future seizures more likely, so vets will probably recommend medicating the dog to make the seizures stop. Repeated seizures might lead to a "cluster" of seizures, which is several seizures back to back. We learned that the danger of canine seizures seems to be clusters of seizures that can wear out a dog's heart. Many dog owners warned of liver damage from seizure medication. Some recommended giving dogs potassium bromide instead of phenobarbital because it may do less damage. This is a bigger concern for younger dogs like Murphy, who have many years to live.

second and third seizures, December 2006

After the shock of Murphy's first seizure, we recognized Murphy's next seizure when we heard his tags jingling for several seconds. As he moved onto snapping his mouth open and shut, he began sliding into a spread eagle. We helped him lie down on one side, but he banged his head repeatedly against the tile floor (again in the kitchen). We sent the boys (10 & 14 years old) to fetch towels to protect his head. After about one minute, the headbanging slowed to a stop, only to be replaced by vigorous paddling with all four feet. He paddled so hard that by the end of this two minute seizure, he was panting deeply and loudly. His tongue was bleeding a little from a bite, but he seemed not to notice.
Murphy lay on the floor for about 5 minutes, then attempted to get up. His legs were shaky and he looked at us as if not recognizing our faces. He proceeded to walk through the house looking in strange places like the shower, the trash can, behind chairs, in the garage. We don't know if he was searching for an attacker, confused about his whereabouts, or just disoriented in general. He bumped into a lot of furniture and door jams.
Another seizure followed in a week, and it was the same length and pattern.

Murphy's first seizure, December 2006

Our dog Murphy is an 8 year old standard poodle. He's our mom's constant companion, and his favorite thing to do is chase a tennis ball down our slippery hallway. He's been our only pet for 7 years. Today, while standing in the kitchen, Murphy started shaking his head and wouldn't stop. We heard his tags jingling, but didn't think much of it at first. After about 10 seconds of that, he began snapping his jaws open and shut manically. Eventually, he sort of fell down in slow motion. We think the event lasted about one minute or less, but we weren't timing it.