Another Grand-Mal & Making A Diet Change

I haven't told you all this, but Henry is still prone to some diarrhea, even since I took him off raw. It's not as often now, but he does still get it from time to time. With Henry still seizing more often than is considered safe, we have decided to try a diet change. Right now we have Henry on Dick Van Patten's Sweet Potato & Venison. We chose this food for a variety of reasons:

~poultry free (poultry seems to trigger frequent focal seizures)

~grain free

~not quite as rich as most grain frees, which may be easier on Henry's tummy

In addition to the kibble, I am adding 1/2 a cup of Veggie Goop. To each meal. This new diet transition started just last night, and last night was the dogs first night of getting the Veggie Goop.

Henry had a grand-mal early this morning. I think it was the diet change. When I took him off raw, he had one within 24 hours at that time too. I really wanted to get it on camcorder, to show how the ice pack worked, but the seizure started out so extremely fast and severe, I just had to stop it right away. Time was of the essence.

I will tell you though, that the new slightly higher up place for the ice pack was extremely effective, The grand-mal, though it was totally full blown, stopped instantly. It is amazing how he went from earth shattering very, very bad seizing, to no seizing. He twitched maybe twice after. He still did need to make his usual bowel movement though, before he could get up, and did a little pacing for about 5 minutes after his bowel movement. Not bad at all! Now, without that ice-pack, considering how that grand-mal started out, it would have been VERY bad. And that seizure would have been quite damaging. I believe he'd be running around frantically, and he'd be temprarily blind, and we would have ended up taking him to the vet either in the middle of the night or as soon as the regular vet opened.

Anyways, we will give the new diet mentioned in the first paragraph of this post a try, and if Henry does not show improvement within a month, we will be trying a full home cooked diet. And if that doesn't work, then I guess we'll have to add phenobarbital. =(

This is the recipe a friend of mine uses for his epi-hound.

1 to 1 1/2 cups brown rice
1 1/2 cups of boiled chicken ( Half a chicken breast in morning and half in evening).
1/2 cup of Veggie Goop
1/4 cup of cottage cheese in morning and 1/4 cup yogurt at evening meal.
1 teaspoon of CALL OF THE WILD.

I'd need to change the meat as it has poultry. I don't know if hamburger would be too rich for Henry though? We live in Michigan, and in the fall, we will be in an abundance of venison here.

If anybody has any feedback to share on the above recipe for Henry's sensitive tummy, and/or suggestions for tweaking, it would be much appreciated! I have it set so that ANYONE can leave a comment. You do not have to be a blogger.

What The Ice Pack Does

This morning, at 6:30am, Henry went into a full blown grand-mal, of mass proportions. Jaw locked open, rattling all over, etc., etc. I ran and got the ice pack, and instantly he changed from the full blown seizure to this stage: (a little graphic, somewhat disturbing, but not too bad)



I have tried to describe before how the ice bag brings him out of the really bad stage, but he isn't actually over it yet. This video shows what I mean. The video may disturb you a little. It does not show the severe part of the sezure, but it does show Henry still in a rather unpleasant state. He stays in that state until he makes his bowel movement, then he gets up and is much better, though may be still a little disoriented. Before we knew of the ice bag trick, Henry was out of it for hours, running at full speed in a panic and bumping full force into things. It's a BIG improvement with the ice pack trick.

EDITING TO ADD: I shared this with the epil k-9 list, and many of them mentioned that the ice pack needs to a be a little higher. I will be trying that next time, and hopefully I will get even better results! Thanks everyone! =)

Made It 19 days This Time

Henry was previosuly having seizures every 9-10 days. This morning at 5:24 am, Henry had a grand mal. I ran to get the ice pack, and as I re-entered the bedroom, my husband said in amazement that it was over already and hardly that bad. Never did need the ice pack.

Something I have noticed about Henry's grand mals, is he can never get up until *after* he makes a bowel movement. I never even try to encourage him to get up, as that would only agitate him being in that post seizure stage. I let Henry decide when he wants to get up. I know some might be tempted to hurry and get their dog outside before he/she makes a bowel movement, and maybe for some dogs that might be OK, but for Henry, I just accept that his pattern shows he is simply out of it until he makes that bowel movemment and rushing round and trying to get him outside before the bowel movement would be a very bad thing to do to Henry. Calmness is so important during a seizure.

After he has made his bowel movement, then he gets up, and he attempts to walk, usually failing in the first few minutes. Then he walks into walls and stuff, which he did today also. He always get caught up in dead ends around the house post seizure. I have heard of many dogs post seizure doing this.

Anyways, he is resting on the sofa comfortably. I am glad he made it twice as long as normal this time. Let's hope next time is even longer.

Another One =(

Henry had another seizure a little over an hour ago. Started out really severe, with the jaw locked open, the body arched and then legs thrashing, I ran into the kitchen, my little one was standing in front of the fridge with his Dad. I picked my son up by the shoulders and calmly and quickly moved him two feet away, opened the freezer, grabbed the bag of ice, put it on Henry's back. Again the ice was stuck in a clump. I didnt waste time this time breaking it up. I layed the bag of ice on the floor and smashed it with my knee and then applied to the lowest part of Henry's back and then his jaw relaxed, his legs stopped thrashing, and his body was no longer like an out of balance washing machine. He laid there for a few minutes, doing little flinches and staring off in space. There was feces and urine everywhere. The ice bag trick, it really works. This seizure (the grand mal part) was less than a minute.

It isn't as cool outside anymore. After a seizure, it is important to always (gently) cool your dog down. I put Henry in the tub and put some cool water in the bottom. The cool water on his feet helped cool his whole body down. I then gave him a luke warm shower. He needed the shower anyways, as he had feces and urine on him.

Another seizure... (and a RANT)

This time I caught the very early part of the seizure. I have never seen Henry in the very first part when the seizure hadnt kicked in. I noticed the crazy eyes first, foaming at the mouth big time, his body reminded me of a dead bent fish, all stiff and curved up. I ran to get my husband right away, by then Henry was in full blown seizure, my husband kept Henry from flying off the sofa. I ran and grabbed the bag of ice. The problem was the ice was in one big frozen lump. I should have broke the ice up right away so it would form to Henry's lower back right away. After I realized it was not working nearly as well as it should, I took the bag of ice and punched it like crazy, the bag came open and some ice came out, but I still had enough ice to work with. I pressed the bag of ice firmly onto his lower back, and presto, the seizure was over. His body is very hot. We have all the windows open and the heat off. We gave him an organic steak. Henry gets an organic steak once a week. This is an $11 steak so it's a rare treat. I think of it as a supplement.

We think it may be the antibiotic (Metronidazole) he is on. He was on this antibiotic a month ago and since then he has been having weekly seizures. We will be getting him on the best probioitic we can find. Then hopefully he will not need antibiotics anymore. Meanwhile, I am not giving him anymore antibiotics till we get ahold of the vet.

editing to add: http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/metronidaz_ad.htm
WHY DIDN'T OUR VET TELL US? I call her every single time Henry has a seizure!
Meanwhile, she has us increasing his seizure meds, when all along this was caused by another med she had prescribed for him! Ack, if I gave my dog every med the vets told me to, Henry would be a mess! It would be, give him metronidazole, this triggers seizures, then give him phenobarbital, this triggers hypothyroidism, then, give him med to control the thyroid, and yada yada yada, meanwhile, the people who makes these meds, are raking in the big bucks while our dogs get sicker and sicker!

Editing agains to add: Please don't take this to mean that I think all medicine is bad. Henry will probably be on Potassium Bromide for the rest of his life. I just think we need to be careful not to overdo it, and we should use them as more of a last ditch solution. Vets and doctors tend to neglect looking at the overall health of our pets, and tend to treat only the symptom, and then our pets get sicker, and then they treat those symptoms, and etc., etc.

Henry had another seizure, about 45 minutes ago. This one was the mildest of all the seizures he has ever had in our care. Thank goodness we had increased his meds!

=(

Well we know for sure now the ice bag trick does help. Henry just had an EXTREMELY violent grand mal. He was convulsing so badly I could hardly even lay a hand on him. Jaw wide open, urine flying everywhere, his body shaking so violent, legs everywhere. Words cant do it justice to describe it to you. My husband wasn't home and I was so stunned I forgot about the ice bag trick at first. I thought to myself that Henry is going to die right now. Then I remembered the ice bag trick, went flying into the kitchen, sent food flying, grabbed the ice bag, shoved it between Henry's lower back and the sofa, and presto, within two seconds he stopped convulsing so violently, but then he went into a new state. He just lied there, still rigid, defeceating, foaming at the mouth, flinching very hard at any little sound, and his eyes looked like he was dead in there. I gave Henry a phenobarb pill, (leftover from several months ago, he's not actually on phenobarbital anymore) It was a scary thing to go through withut my husband, and I had a panic attack shortly after the grand mal was done. My husband is home now, and I have calmed down. (mostly) Henry is resting on the sofa. (see picture above) We will be increasing his meds. This just isn't reasonable and I'm afraid one of these days a seizure really will kill him.

Grand mal =(

Henry had a grand mal at 5:37 am. It wasn't quite as severe as last time, but still pretty bad. This time his mouth didn't lock open. His legs paddled, his mouth foamed, his back and neck arched backwards, his whole boddy rattled like an out of balance washing machine and he peed and pouped. The poup was actually semi soft this time, not pure liquid as it had been. The post seizure phase was not as bad this time.

Two things I did that I think really helped:

~large bag of ice held firmly against lower back. The seizure happened to stop within a few seconds when I did that. Coincidence or not I dont know. This has worked for others as well.

~spoonful of Breyer's all natural vanilla ice cream as soon as he was able to work his mouth to be able to eat it.

He did act blind afterwards like he did last time. But he hardly ran at all. He paced, but did not run like last time. Henry is capable of running at very high speeds due to his breed so I am so glad he did not do the running thing because that does not go well with him not being able to avoid running into things.

He is on the sofa resting comfortably in his jammies.

We we're certainly better prepared this time.