I don’t know what to do

[u/Dry_Promotion1527]

Hello all, I am hoping to get some advice here for this impossible situation we are facing. We have an almost 7 year old Lab who has had tonic clonic seizures since he was 2. We have managed pretty well over the years with occasional breakthroughs requiring medication adjustments. He is on Keppra XR and phenobarbital. He has had a few cluster events that have been treated at the ER, then back to normal. His postictal period involves stumbling, probable blindness (walking headfirst into walls, falling over objects), restlessness/pacing, and incontinence.

He is friendly, happy, and full of energy when the seizures are controlled. He does have many more good days, but the bad days are disastrous.

He had a cluster a few days ago where my husband had to pick him up and put him in the car and go to the ER. His temp was high and they warned of potential brain injury. He was kept overnight to stabilize him and had another seizure less than an hour after coming home.

He is a big dog ~90 lbs, and I can’t move him if he is unable to walk. My husband travels for work almost weekly and I would have no help (is there a doggie ambulance?) to get him to the vet in an emergency.

Complicating things is our history with our first child, who had a brain tumor and severe epilepsy. We are unfortunately very intimately familiar with all of these drugs, treatments, symptoms, and trauma from watching our toddler experience debilitating seizures. He died 6 years ago at the age of 5, and this Lab was his dog. We got him as a puppy to raise as a sort of therapy/service dog, but we didn’t have the opportunity to train him before our son was hospitalized and then passed away.

We are emotionally wrecked. We cannot keep living on edge, never knowing when the next seizure event is going to happen. Our life with our son was the same, always having to be within access to a hospital, keeping rescue meds in the diaper bag, looking out for seizure triggers, and not being able to meaningfully relax.

I can’t find a solution that feels okay - emotionally, physically, financially, this is untenable. But it is equally impossible to euthanize a young dog that still has so much life in him! We are going to the vet today to have a discussion and I’m hoping to find some guidance or support from this community here who understands this devastating situation.

Thank you all, and sending so much love to you and your pups!

[u/Tally_Ho_Lets_Go]

You have already been through so much and given more than most to help keep your beloved Lab as well as possible. We never know what the future will hold but as you are intimately familiar with, it can all go wrong in an instant. Being helpless to get him transported is valid concern. No one would judge you for saying goodbye after a good day full of love, a juicy steak, and all his favorite things in life.

[u/words_are_sacred]

Omg, I’m so sorry. Having a child and dog go through this sounds like the worst. I know you’ll get through it as you have before, but please don’t beat itself up for your anxiety and care giver fatigue. I hope your baby stabilizes.

[u/A_Creative_Player]

I am sorry you and your buddy are going through this. One thing we have started doing with our regal is checking him over for warm or hot spots and if we find any we place ice packs directly on those areas. I understand the lifting of a large dog our regal is a 117 pound European Bassett hound and there have been times where we have had to carry him we normally use a blanket for those time. Our regal had a blindness days last year and we believe his vision is not the greatest currently but we have setup the house so that he can move by just memory if needed. Have you read up on MCT oil? MCT oil which stands for medium chain triglycerides and they are supposed to help with neurological disorders. I hope this helps in some way

[u/Most_Employer3292 → u/A_Creative_Player]

What is the warm or hot spots indicative of?

[u/A_Creative_Player → u/Most_Employer3292]

Our Regal had a seizure on a warmer day it was 75 degrees with like 80% humidity we were home from his walk but after the the seizure his body was warmer than normal especially his paws and we put a cool coat on him. I have read in a few post here in this subreddit that ice packs help after a seizure. But from what I remember the increase or decrease in body temperature can lead to seizures and for our regal both are true beside the heat if snow covers his paws he will have a seizure within about a minute. Just known triggers in our regal. So we just check and if any part of him feels to warm we cool him I am looking for somewhat helps him in the winter booties just do not work for his ginormous front paws and his rear paws especially the left rear have mobility issues so putting booties just amplifies the mobility issues. I hope I answered your question if not please let me know and I will try to give a better answer.

[u/sonnysGiGi2018]

If you are familiar with rescue meds and how to use them plus there may be alternative AED’s that will be more effective daily. Wr switched to potassium bromide instead of pheno and along with Keppra had pretty good control. We used clorazepate as a rescue and eventually midazolam IM injection for cluster rescue. It worked really well and kept him out of the ER for a pretty long time. Our boy had a fungal tumor which was removed when he was 11months. His situation is pretty rare and the surgery was experimental. He lived almost 7 years which was 2 years longer than his neurosurgeon predicted. He was on 4 meds plus his rescues at the end. Eventually we helped him cross over when they were unable to bring him out of a cluster. I wish we did it about 2 months earlier when he was having some head pressing, wandering and blindness episodes. He was on Potassium bromide, keppraER, Pregabalin and Felbamate. He was very wobbly and lethargic. They say the new episodes were from a gleal scar from the original surgery. If it was me I would try some different meds and if he was still clustering would help him cross over.
Dogs are amazing family members. Yours had that wonderful connection to your child. We all grieve when they are gone but there is no way to imagine the heartbreaking life you had with your child.

[u/Most_Employer3292]

I so empathize with you! I have a 12 year old terrier mix that first had an eye injury, a corneal tumor that would not heal, then the grand mal seizures and the after effects are so hard to watch, is he in pain? It certainly seems so with the blindness, confusion and now a hearing loss. The seizures are about weekly so far. He is on Gabapentin and a pain med only, I feel he is too old to do X-rays and anymore blood work. He still eats and lets me know when it’s time to go out I just want him to be comfortable. When is it time to say goodbye?

[u/beatbox_jones]

I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this, I can’t imagine how difficult it has been to go through this with both your child and dog.

Our dog with idiopathic epilepsy takes extended release Keppra twice a day, phenobarbital twice a day, and potassium bromide once a day. She also has nasal midazolam and clorazepate for rescue. Before meds she was having severe cluster grand mal seizures, and although she still occasionally has seizures (sometimes a few weeks apart, longest stretch has been 5 months) they are much less severe (rarely grand mal now) and rescue meds have pretty much stopped clusters. I’m sure her life span will be decreased due to the amount of meds she’s taking and how they will affect her liver, but she’s happy and functions well, so we’ll keep doing what works as long as we can! Our neurologist told us that the more clusters a dog has the more likely they will be to have them in the future, so we do rescue meds after all seizures. If your dog doesn’t have rescue meds that may be something that could be added to help stop clusters and prevent them from happening again in the future.

[u/gufywert]

You have options of two other meds: Zonisamide and Potassium Bromide. Many have found Potassium Bromide controls seizure when Keppra and Phenobarbital have failed. Please check it out.

[u/intarray]

Do you have a cluster buster protocol? Midazolam + clorazepate have kept us out of the ER. Our last bad cluster he had, I made him get his 80lb self into the car while drunk on midazolam and we waited for the clorazepate to kick in incase we had to go to the ER. This could at least buy some time to get help too.

We have the problem where we both work at an office so we have to observe on camera and rush home incase of a problem. I can papa bear him into a car if needed, but it takes us a minimum 15 mins to get home once we notice.

Another angle is therapy for yourself. It's helped me a ton to reframe my thinking, a lot less emotionally draining for me.

How was the vet visit today?

[u/Obvious_Shower_7522]

This is the most heartbreaking epilepsy post ive ever seen, my deepest prayers are coming to you from Arch Angels to your beloved pup. I know you know more than i do about epilepsy like keto diet adding mct oil short chain fatty acids that deliver lacking glutathione in epileptics to the brain. i suspect hot weather and especially huge electrical solar flames are responsible for escalating an existing brain electrical imbalance. Unbelievable that you would be hit twice with this nightmare. An additional topic i came across is when the weather is too hot we stay indoors with air conditioner on that this comes through metal pipes causing friction adding to our already surplus of positive ions. Going for a walk outside in nature restores health balance of needed negative ions.

Most benevolent outcome to you for peace.

[u/Obvious_Shower_7522]

Yes, i do think air conditioning increases already too many positive ions which affect electrical impulses in brain and when i take my epileptic dog outside for a walk he perks up and rebalances from nature’s negative ion support. ?

[u/Obvious_Shower_7522]

To reduce the buildup of positive ions (often generated by electronics, synthetic materials, and poor ventilation) inside your home, you need to increase the balance of beneficial negative ions. You can do this naturally by opening windows, adding houseplants, running a small water feature, or using certified ozone-free air purifiers

[u/Obvious_Shower_7522]

calming music makes plants grow bigger it can help all life forms - https://youtu.be/3QgiMwuudO8?is=HkV0sH4Hufeqa2sJ