Older dog having siezures - Pet forum for dogs cats and humans

wendylanders · #1 June 17th, 2007, 10:45 PM

Hi! I'm new here and have a question. We have a 13 year-old female Shephard/Chow mix named Polly. She has been in good health and eating until a few minutes ago. I have also noticed she has had an excessive thirst and has been drinking alot of water lately. We had steaks for dinner tonight and she was fine and eating on the bone. Later on, she was laying on the floor at the side of the bed and started having convulsions. Her body started shaking so bad it was actually thrusting her forward. It was actually pushing her across the room and her whole body was heaving and she was salivating out of her mouth. After a few minutes she seemed to calm down, then it started again.

I plan on taking her to the vet first thing in the morning, but I need to know how to treat her now. She had a mild heat stroke last summer and we rushed her to the 24-hour vet. After running blood tests and wanting to run numerous other tests, they told me it would be over $500 to get a complete testing of her! I declined and took her home to die in peace, or so I thought! She was perfectly fine after that up until now!

She has settled down now and is lying on her blanket and seems to be over it. I did notice that the whites of her eyes are red and I don't know if this means anything. Any advice will be appreciated!

hazelrunpack · #2 June 17th, 2007, 10:53 PM

Wendy, I think we're a little out of our league on this one. It sounds like it was either a grand mal seizure or she's gotten into something toxic. Is there an emergency line at your vet clinic? Might be a very good idea to call if there is.

Can you tell how fast her heart is going?

And when you say the whites of her eyes are red--do you mean bloodshot, or blood red?

wendylanders · #3 June 18th, 2007, 05:52 PM

I took Polly to the vet this afternoon. First let me tell you that she was acting very disoriented and I had to carry her in because she was too unstable on her feet to walk (she weighs 42 lbs.) I laid her on the examining table and she acted like she was in a daze. I just knew she was dying! . I tried to talk to her, but couldn't even get her to wag her tail.

I let the vet run a blood panel on her and they found out her blood sugar was very low! She also said her electrocides (?) were also low. She said this develops in older dogs where their body does not produce enough sugar to break things down. She gave her a syringe full of Karo Syrup watered down, and she immediately perked up! ! I wish I had of known about this last night, I had a whole bottle of Karo syrup in the cabinet!

She also gave her an IV full of electrodes and she got even perkier. She even started wagging her tail when I talked to her. The vet said this does not mean that she doesn't have a tumor, but without doing an MRI they would never know. I also told her that I have been neglectant in giving Polly her heartworm medicine the last few months. I asked her if it would hurt her if she did have heartworms, without me having her tested. She said it definetely would, and the pills would kill her if she did have them! I knew I would always wonder if heartworms killed her if she died, so I told the vet to go ahead and test her for that too. Thankfully it came back negative!

The vet gave me one dose of a heartworm pill and didn't charge me. I told her I hated to get a six month dosage if she wasn't going to live. Polly is on a different dosage from Cody (our 2 year-old German Shephard) because of her weight. Cody is about 86 lbs.! She also gave me a bottle of Predazone pills and told me to give her half of one, twice a day. That would help her blood sugar. She will have to take these pills the rest of her life, but thankfully they were fairly cheap (about 10 cents a pill).

The vet said to also feed her 3-5 small meals throughout the day, instead of only one big meal at night. She also said her sugar levels will never be normal and she is to have limited exercise, because over exertion can make her sugar level too low. (Easier said than done, because Cody tries to play with her all the time)! If she has another seizure, or has aimless wandering, I am to give her Karo Syrup or honey, then offer her food. They want me to bring her back in 3 weeks to check her blood values again.

The total visit wound up costing me a little over $200. A small price to pay for a dog we have had for 13 years! That price included the pills, bloodwork for seizures, bloodwork for heartworms, and the office visit. I would rather invest $200 to get her well, than spend that amount having her put to sleep.