I took my jr x to vets this week as he's been having, I think fits, I wasn't sure, first time thought he had over done it exercising (looked liked he was drunk), then in hot summer, same again, but this time I held him, if I let him go, he'd fall over, panting loads, last time was couple days ago, 11 oclock at night,so different than other 2,he came looking for me, didn't seem right, I held him again, its like hes drunk, then goes rigid, pants, then minutes later he's ok again.

Vets aren't keen on putting him on meds, as he's not having enough fits? Anyone else on here has a pet who suffers from this? Am soo worried about him, he's only 4

poor dog
Sorry I don't have any advice but best wishes to both of you
keep us posted

thank you, a brain scan was mentioned, costing up to £1000, and guess who hasn't got insurance,
but if needs be. I'll find the money, just want him sorted.

One of my dogs has severe fits. He has them every four to six weeks, clusters (several fits over the course of a day). The first time he had one we took him to the vets and they said no medication was necessary unless it became more than one a month ... I thought he was having a heart attack at the time as I'd not seen a dog have fits and didn't really know that they were affected by the illness. Unfortunately he now has twelve at a time though and his medication has gradually increased in strength. In February he was very poorly and the medication wasn't working anymore and it was affecting his liver. He's now on human medication which is keeping his fitting down to his pattern of four to six weeks apart, as said above. His epilepsy was only covered by his insurance for the first year so we have to find the money now. For his present meds the vets wanted £200 per month which we were not going to be able to pay so we now get a prescription from the vet and buy online at a quarter of the price.

I hope your little fellow doesn't have them and that it's something else as it's a horrible illness. If he does have it and I can give any advice in dealing with it let me know. Our dog has been affected by it for about four years now so I may be able to answer a question or two for you. I can also recommend a forum that has many epileptic dogs on it, if it turns out to be the case.

Good luck.

My Yorkshire Terrier had fits on and off throught his life from about 4 onwards, he was never put on meds as they weren't frequent enough.
We were advised to document the fits, duration and frequency and to put all the light out and cover him with a towel or blanket during them.
He lived until he was 14 and was pts for a different reason.
What I am trying to say is that as long as your dog is monitored you can still have a long and happy life together!
Hope this helps!

my mother-in-laws westie started having bad fits, all the usual tests were fine even though after the last fit she couldnt stand or even lift her head,the vet said there was nothing else to do except put her to sleep,my MIL decided to find a specialist to take her to and luckily she was insured and after a bit of research online it turned out to be a simple thyroid problem,once they started the thyroid meds the fits stopped and she hasnt had one for 2 years...

good luck xxx

Sorry to hear about your dog.

I would have thought that your vet would suggest a blood test to check for signs of liver disease but I really hope it's nothing that serious.

I've got a Jack Russell that has occasional seizures that sound very similar to what your dog experiences.

I wanted to show my vet what the seizures looked like, but I never caught one on camera, so I did a search on YouTube and found videos, like those below, of dog's having very similar seizures ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdCru2HeL70
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61IXO8XFrI0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYYnTGl-GdU (this one is quite a strong example)

If so, he might have a thing called CESC (Canine Epileptoid Cramping Syndrome) also sometimes called "Spike's Disease.. Dogs with CESC tend to remain conscious of their surroundings whilst having a seizure, unlike epiileptic dogs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_...mping_Syndrome

CESC is most common in Border Terriers but very similar seizures have been seen in other breeds. It's not pleasant to see but, in my experience, it is less serious than epilepsy as there are non-medical steps you can take to reduce the frequency and severity.

My vet was dismissive of the idea, when I suggested it, but I was convinced my dog didn't have epilepsy (having already had a dog 20 years ago that was epileptic and seeing clear differences in the seizures).

I changed my dog to a Gluten Free diet (a company called James Wellbeloved do a good range of hypoallergetic dry kibble and wet pouches, but I am sure there are other brands as well) and his seizures are now much less frequent (he can go 6-7 months without having one) and much less severe (his early seizures were terrible but even I struggle to tell if he's having one now).

I hope that this helps you, or anyone else whose dogs has similar seizures.

Gosh, your dog and you, I've never heard of clusters, that must be so upsetting for you and your dog, mine has only had 3, which I've seen, and that was upsetting enough, please pm me the forum, and thank you x

Thank you, interesting to see your dog started about 4yrs to, the vet has asked me to keep a record of him to, I'll try the lights out with him next time, all he wants is me to hold him, am glad your dog had a happy life x

good on your mil for taking it further, and thank you for mentioning thyroid, something to mention next time we're at the vets x

My vet wants me to video a fit too, but all I want to do is hold him and comfort him, that third you tube clip is quite upsetting, he isn't as bad as that, he had a blood test, came back all good, but digestive showed up, he does have probs with what he eats, some days he's good, other days, he's like in a world of his own, vet did say about changing his diet, good to know that you've changed his diet and its helping, thank you for your input, means a lot to me and my dog xx

Have pm'd you with the website.

mine used to have clusters 7 a day on a bad day and he would have them once a week all grand mals it is disturbing if its any consolation your dogs fits don't sound too bad. My dog used to fall over, foam at the mouth, pee poo whilst thrashing his legs about for around a minute or two.

Same with mine except every four weeks, and then they last for about three days, then three days to get back to normal. He doesn't poo ... yet ... but he pees and he's a very big dog so there's lots of it! Don't know that I would cope if it was weekly, monthly is bad enough.

There again, there are lots of dogs where the meds help and they lead a normal, healthy life, and hopefully this will be the case here.

My cairn was diagnosed as epileptic over 2 years ago after she started fitting and it became a regular occurance. She would have a cluster of 5/6 fits every couple of weeks until we got her medication right.

Unfortunately the side effect of the clusters caused the early onset of senility/dementia (she was only 10 at the time). The vet did also suspect a brain tumour but i wouldn't have the scan because the vet said even if the scan proved that she had one, there was nothing they could do for her. So to me that was a waste of time.

I lost her in May this year after a really bad cluster and we could not let her go through it any more. The vet agreed that she had been through enough. She was just a totally different dog, didn't really know who we were anymore, lost all her housetraining and paced for hours in a world of her own. She went from being a feisty, loving little dog to the total opposite, it broke my heart.

But the reason i am telling you is that although my dog had a pretty bad case it doesn't mean the end for your dog in any way, the medication that they can give nowadays is brilliant. And i know of other dogs who are epilipetic that live really happy lives.

My dog was a big mastiff so believe me I know the a lot of pee lol, he took the down pipe off our house after falling against it after one fit. We dealt with them for a year until the did become 7 or 8 over the space of two days and every weeks and he was medicated up to the eyeballs at that stage and couldn't be walked anymore has he became fearful of things and you could tell his brain wasn't right any more so we made the decision to PTS for him and for my family as I had a two year old and the thought of a 12 stone dog collapsing on him or hurting him was too much too risk. Though give him his due he never once bit or displayed any aggression even straight after a fit or just before he would go into one. He was such an amazing beast.

I tried the holisitic approaches first, changing his diet adding tincture to his water before I started epi drugs but non of it helped he progressed really quickly

My dog is the most friendly dog normally, but when he has a fit we have to stay back at least 1 m, he does snarl when he comes round and does not know whats happening to him. (poor boy), and he does the most awful howling a couple of times too, then after he is able to stand up (after falling a bout lots when trying to get up to early), he needs to do his running out of the house into the garden and back for 1/2 hr before he gets calme
and starts to drink and then he needs some food to get his blood sugar up and then if we are lucky he settles again.
Awful illness.

Our is a greyhound/deerhound, so not quite as heavy! He's now on human medication - apparently they can't give them that until all the animal meds have been tried - and, so far, it's keeping him to his monthly schedule. The phenobarbitone and bromide started to affect his liver so we couldn't continue with that. He's six and a half now and had it for four years. You did well to cope so long and I certainly couldn't have coped with weekly bouts of it.

Ours does that too. I've had to go next door and tell them we're not strangling him as it's sometimes in the middle of the night! He's not at all aggressive though, although I keep my hands well away from his mouth at the beginning of a fit.

Mine tends to clamp his teeth round anything near, wooden table leg, or as last time the metal on the bottom of my PC chair, he holds on so tight whilst fitting, he made his gums bleed. Lucky no teeth broken. So it can be dangerous to be to near.
We also had to tell out neighbours re the howling. I think its probably a lurcher thing, they do seems to howl more then other dogs.

Didn't think of that, maybe it is. So quiet normally though as they hardly ever bark let alone any other noise which is why I like them. I think I'd go nuts if I had a yappy one.

Have to say, mine does tend to bark if he sees a dog (when he is on lead), once close he is quiet, and off the lead he does not bark at all.

This took me back to when my friends dog was having fits. She was the most beautiful German Shepherd, however all the fits muddled her brain and I can remember being sat on the sofa one time when she walked into the room, she clearly didnt recognise me and the look she gave me made me so uneasy, I was sat down at her level so I very slowly stood up. I dont fear dogs, but I knew she wasnt quite right and in my mind unpredictable.

No amount of medication could control the fits and the dog was getting more and more distressed. Bloody awful.

Ren starting having 'turns' about 3 years ago, very frightening. Sometimes (not always) she starts coughing and after about ten seconds, it gets shorter and quieter and she collapses. Then she stiffens up, eyes open but not there, sometimes she makes a groaning sound, has a poo and then she sort of comes round and twists to her feet looking dazed and we say 'aaaaaand back in the room'.

She can go weeks without it happening or do it twice in a day.

We didn't know what was happening at first, she sometimes vomited too, but cutting a long story short, after lots of tookng and froing to the vets, to it turns out she has a grade 5 heart murmur, heart arrythmia and an enlarged heart (double the size it should be). An emergency vet told us she was actually in heart failure and there wasn't much we could do. That wasn't true. We haven't found out *exactly* what is wrong, as the vets have had our eyes out for hundreds of pounds as it is, but after the vets stuck her on fortekor and vetmedin to the tune of £60 odd a month (one make her heart stronger, one to make it beat more regular) she's been ok. Like i say, she has turns now and again, but considering we thought she wouldn't make it another six month, she's still here, 13 years old, like a little trooper.

I've posted here before with a longer version of her story, so I guess if you do a search with my name, ren, heart, etc, in pet forum it will come up.

She is a jack Russell btw

Sad to say we lost our dog to fits on Friday. It was a horrible decision to make but they were getting worse and worse each time. He had even started to fit one after the other the last two times (status epilepticus) where there was no more than a minute between them, which means the brain is in a constant state of seizure.

But it took him a good four years to reach this stage and although I know other dogs that fit there was only one other who had them as badly as our boy. All the other dogs that I know of who have seizures are nowhere as bad and are all controlled either completely or almost completely by their medication.