Snowie has been seizure free for over a year!! He had his annual blood tests, which included testing his epilepsy meds blood levels, and it’s below the therapeutic levels. The lab uses a range of 150-300 (I forget the units). Last year Snowie measured 168, in the therapeutic range. This year he’s at 63.8! So our vet said that since he’s been fine, we can ween him off the meds. Or not. She likes to hedge her bets! Basically saying, who knows what the outcome will be. She did say a dog should not be medicated unnecessarily. So we’ll be reducing the dose by 0.2ml per month, which will take 7 months to ween him off. He’s on 1.4ml/day, which is already a very low dose (for his weight, normal dose is 4ml/day, but at that dose he went into the danger zone and was temporarily paralyzed). He’s on potassium bromide. I am relieved we have got to this stage. I do suspect that all the tick and flea pesticides that we put on him or administered orally affected him, because since we’ve stopped them all, he’s been seizure free.
Fingers crossed for you all. So many humans get stuck on meds due to fear of stopping...particularly related to loss of driving licenses....i am sure we overmedicate so many. It's a slow process for you but worth trying I think.
Very good news. Having had an epileptic dog I know the stress and strain, it sounds as if Snowie is doing vey well.
Lovely news ! My little seizure girl was on phenobarbital , no ill effects, but even so , I was thrilled when we reduced the dose . Wishing dear Snowie continued good health, bless xx
Great news that he's been seizure free for that length of time. Our previous lab BJ was epileptic and we went through all the rollercoaster rides of treatments for quite a few years, he was also on potassium bromide after an initial couple of years on phenobarb which turned him into a zombie. He was fit-free for his final 5 years. We also gradually reduced his meds (originally against the vet's advice) until he was on a dose we were told was insufficient but we maintained it until the end, mainly because as we made the decision without veterinary approval we were afraid to take him off altogether. It is good your vet has that attitude and I hope very much that Snowie comes off the meds successfully. Fingers very much crossed.
Our vet did say that even at this very low dose below the therapeutic level, that it might be keeping the seizures away. Or not. Which is why she felt it was worth a chance to wean him off altogether. She said if he had a seizure, then we can increase the dose. But felt it was worth getting him off the meds if we could as she does not like medicating unnecessarily. Interestingly we’ve noticed that Snowie has been happier and more playful these past few months, and now we wonder if it’s because the KBr has been so low, that maybe before it had been making him dopey.
Aloha MF, I stubblemed across a post you did in 2015 on nov. 28th where you discribed your dog having a slipped disk and epilepsy. What you described is so similar to a condition my dog had. You probably have things figured out but I think this info can be helpful to you and others. My dog had Granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis or (GME) for short. It is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that leads to the formation of granuloma(s) -- a ball-like collection of immune cells formed when the immune system tries to wall off foreign substances It’s basically immflammation of the brain. The pressure builds in the primary motor cortex area and affects motor skills. and dogs can go blind if the pressure builds on the other parts of the brain like the occipital lobe. The vets, we saw thought it is epilepsy. Like your dog ours had itchy skin. The vets thought it was an allergy. You also mentioned him screaming in pain when jumping into mud. Our dog would do that jumping down from things. We thought she was injured too and couldn’t figure it out. And like you when we’d take her to the vet the vets would say she seems okay. It’s sad to think her head was hurting. Long story short. Our dog was 6, always had itchy skin. Around age 4 I started noticing her be more lethargic and wanting to go be in quite dark rooms. I for some reason thought she was getting older and wanted to go to bed earlier. Definitely too young for that. I now think she didn’t like the bright living room with the loud tv and friend camotion. When she was six she had a seizure and lost a lot of control of her motor skills. Very stiff, painful and very hard walk. About two weeks later she lost her vision. Then about two weeks later she lost control of her respiratory system and passed. This was incredibly hard to diagnose because it seems to be misdiagnosed for conditions like epilepsy and very little on the internet. I still do not know as much as I would like and the vets I spoke with dont know where or how dogs get GME. I have read it maybe linked to over vaccinations causing this autoimmune like condition. She was vaccinated by the breeder then the vets convinced used she get fully vaccinated because they were not sure if the breeder did it fully. Our dog had an MRI and spinal tap. I believe the spinel tap is what identified she had GME. Please reach out to me if you have question and share this info with everyone who has a dog with seizures. The veterinarians say GME is very rare but it make me wonder if it’s being misdiagnosed. ❤️
