Eileen,
First of all, I know what you are going through. Epilepsy is a terrible thing to cope with... However, the most important thing to remember is that most dogs can lead a normal life, once they get on the proper dosage.
Our Sadie was an extreme case. She clustered, and to make matters worse, reacted adversely to the anti seizure drugs. She suffered from "ATAXIA" which is a side effect to the pheno-barb and kbr. As I said before, Sadie was a very unusual case.
You are already on the right track. You are noticing things... and that's important. One thing that is very helpful is to keep a log of the seizures. Record as much information as you can. This will be helpful to your vet. You need to record things like:
time of seizure
length of seizure
how long before your dog is back to "normal"
did the dog urinate or deficate during the seizure...
also include anything else, like, had you changed foods, eating times... had you had company, was there an unusual amount of stress in your house that day....
Include anything out of the norm. It's a cumbersome task, but, with time... you may be lucky to see a pattern develop.
ALSO... have your vet test your dog's Thyroid... that may sound really odd, but... in alot of cases, dogs with thyroid problems often have seizures that are mistken for epilepsy. It's important to have the Thyroid test send to the University of Michigan... they are the most accurate... Thyroid tests are tricky and it's easy to get either a "false posititive" or "false negative".
And finally... there are many wonderful resources on the web, including a mailing list for Canine Epilepsy. I don't have the URL for that, but, if you do a search on the Web, she should find it. If not, let me know, and I'll dig through my records.
Hang tight... Stay calm. Remember to have a pillow handy, to put under the dogs head while seizing. It's wise to keep other pets away as well... sometimes other dogs instinctually want to attack a seizing dog.
Good luck, and my prayers are with you....
Annie
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