Roscoe was in a deep sleep when he started siezuring, his back was arched, his back legs weren't moving too much and one of his front paws was kind of waving. he was breathing heavy and foaming a little from his mouth , and he lost his bladder. We got the vet on the phone while it was happening. the seizure lasted about 2-3 minutes, he came out of it slowly and when he did his little face was sort of twisted up. After another minute , he started coming out of it completely. he was wagging his tail and right now he is very restless. He is in bed with my wife and just kind of whining and waging his tail. He is still kind of wobbly though. The vet told us not to do anything at the moment, see how he is over night and we will bring him in in the morning. He will be 5 in June. Has anyone had this happen before ? Up until now he has been in perfect health.
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Little Roscoe just had a siezure, not sure what to do next
- Thread starter cwarner
- Start date
diddy
Well-known member
Hi, I dont know much about seizures, but it sounds a bit like Episodic Falling Syndrome. This may help and reassure you a bit. Let us know how he's doing.
www.episodicfallingfalling.com
www.episodicfallingfalling.com
Nicki
Moderator
Episodic Falling happens when they are awake and on the move.
The other possiblity is poisoning of some description - does he pick up toads or anything?
This does sound like a seizure, especially that he is actiing normally now. Sometimes they just have one and never have another one again.
Generally if they do have more, the vets only tend to advise medciation if they have more than two a month.
There's lots of information and some links here
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?8786-Epilepsy
unfortunately when the board was updated it affected soem of the formatting on older posts, but it's still readable.
I would write down exactly what happened whilst you remember, and take Roscoe to the vets for a check over. If he does continue to have fits, they may recommend an MRI - often it is Idiopathic Epilepsy - basically there is no explanation for it.
There is lots of different conventional medication available and often they can be managed with that - you can also keep rectal diazepam in the house which you can give if they don't come out of a seizure. {I always used to carry it everywhere with me, I actually lost my Cavalier with Epilepsy 17 months ago and realised yesterday that I was still carrying the Diazepam about with me!}
The other possiblity is poisoning of some description - does he pick up toads or anything?
This does sound like a seizure, especially that he is actiing normally now. Sometimes they just have one and never have another one again.
Generally if they do have more, the vets only tend to advise medciation if they have more than two a month.
There's lots of information and some links here
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?8786-Epilepsy
unfortunately when the board was updated it affected soem of the formatting on older posts, but it's still readable.
I would write down exactly what happened whilst you remember, and take Roscoe to the vets for a check over. If he does continue to have fits, they may recommend an MRI - often it is Idiopathic Epilepsy - basically there is no explanation for it.
There is lots of different conventional medication available and often they can be managed with that - you can also keep rectal diazepam in the house which you can give if they don't come out of a seizure. {I always used to carry it everywhere with me, I actually lost my Cavalier with Epilepsy 17 months ago and realised yesterday that I was still carrying the Diazepam about with me!}
I'd concur with what Nicki has said. You definitely do need to see a vet so it is great that you are lined up to do this. Dogs generally return to normal fairly soon after a seizure. It does sound likely to be an epileptic fit and thus your vet will probably give you emergency meds to have around in case of another seizure. Epilepsy really varies between dogs -- some have only a couple of seizures in a lifetime and some seize regularly. But there are also some underlying medical conditions that can cause seizures so a full medical checkup is always in order (your vet will want to do blood tests probably). Hopefully this is a once-off for Roscoe.
Love my Cavaliers
Well-known member
We had a German Shepherd who had a seizure disorder with grand mal seizures and Riley, my SM dog, had one siezure early in December. Her neurologist gave me some diazepam (valium) to keep with me in case she had another, but so far that was the only one. Like Nicki and Karlin said, sometimes they may just have that one. Hopefully that will be the case with Roscoe.
My German Shepherd was a different story. She had a seizure disorder for the last 5 years of her life (she died when she was almost 13) but was well controlled on medication for her last two years and had no seizures. She was on phenobarbitol and potassium bromide. Her vet gave me the phenobarb, but the potassium bromide had to be specially formulated at a pharmcay and then they mailed it to me. I also had valium on hand to give her if she had more than one in a row. One Christmas, she had seven of them right in a row - no time to recover in between. She went to the emergency hospital and was put on a valium drip and was kept for several days while they tried to control her.
What Roscoe went through sounds pretty typical of my german shepherd's experience. She would always take a while to recover. Sometimes she would stand with her nose in a corner until she got her balance back, sometimes she would circle me, but always touching me - seemed like she always wanted contact with one of us while she was recovering. Recoveries took quite a while - sometimes hours, but then she was back to her normal self running, jumping, eating well, happy.
Like Karlin said, your vet will probably do blood tests - there are a number of medical disorders that can cause seizures (diabetes, I think). We also had an MRI of our shepherd's brain to see if it was a tumor after all medical causes had been ruled out (negative luckily). They finally just called it late-onset epilepsy.
Try not to worry too much and let us know what the vet says.
My German Shepherd was a different story. She had a seizure disorder for the last 5 years of her life (she died when she was almost 13) but was well controlled on medication for her last two years and had no seizures. She was on phenobarbitol and potassium bromide. Her vet gave me the phenobarb, but the potassium bromide had to be specially formulated at a pharmcay and then they mailed it to me. I also had valium on hand to give her if she had more than one in a row. One Christmas, she had seven of them right in a row - no time to recover in between. She went to the emergency hospital and was put on a valium drip and was kept for several days while they tried to control her.
What Roscoe went through sounds pretty typical of my german shepherd's experience. She would always take a while to recover. Sometimes she would stand with her nose in a corner until she got her balance back, sometimes she would circle me, but always touching me - seemed like she always wanted contact with one of us while she was recovering. Recoveries took quite a while - sometimes hours, but then she was back to her normal self running, jumping, eating well, happy.
Like Karlin said, your vet will probably do blood tests - there are a number of medical disorders that can cause seizures (diabetes, I think). We also had an MRI of our shepherd's brain to see if it was a tumor after all medical causes had been ruled out (negative luckily). They finally just called it late-onset epilepsy.
Try not to worry too much and let us know what the vet says.
Thought I'd add this link to a page on Dr Clare Rusbridge's website on epilepsy. It is also one of her specialities along with SM:
http://www.veterinary-neurologist.co.uk/seizures_epilepsy.htm
http://www.veterinary-neurologist.co.uk/seizures_epilepsy.htm
We got Roscoe back from the Vets and his results. Everything checked out fine except for his ph levels were very high, the little dude has a urinary tract infection. So the doctor seems to think it was either fever or ph level related. So far Roscoe has been back to normal. Slept okay , walks around with no problems etc. I hope I never have to see one of those again.
Thanks for the replies and we are keeping a close eye on him. I've been reading that siezures are quite common in dogs (although I've never had one happen to any of mine til now) and after seeing it just can't believe they can live thru it. It was a very disturbing experience. I hope he is going to be okay.
Zoe bowie
Well-known member
Great news to hear that all seems to be ok apart from the urinary track infection, my little Zoe had a major fit which lasted almost 45 mins, it was the worst experience of my life, and one I hope to never experience again! We took her straight to the vet and he checked everything out, it was good that our vet could see her while she was still fitting, she never had another episode & all her tests came back clear. This happened to her when she was in her first (& only) season, the vet believed that the stress on her body while in season may have caused it, just another fantastic reason why it is better to neuter!!
Hope Roscoe will be healthy soon, and doesn't have another one
Hope Roscoe will be healthy soon, and doesn't have another one
The Rouge Princess
Well-known member
Pleased to hear little Roscoe is feeling better
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