French bulldog had a seizure last night

[D1on]

Just a quick update.

Thank god, He hasn't had another seizure in getting on for 72 hours now, Strange how he had 3 within 10 hours and not one within 72 hours...

The vet said as one of his seizures was around 3 minutes long, He has been prescribed 30mg of Epiphen twice a day.

We will start him on this tonight and hope for the best...

Thanks again for all your replies and experiences.

[Sporky]

Clusters are not uncommon. Ours does 36 hours of fits - a dozen or so before she was switched to the current medication; last set was only four, I think. You may need to go through a few drugs / combinations to get things under good control.

[moorx]

Best of luck and please keep the updates coming

[Smiler.]

D1on said:

Just a quick update.

Thank god, He hasn't had another seizure in getting on for 72 hours now, Strange how he had 3 within 10 hours and not one within 72 hours...

The vet said as one of his seizures was around 3 minutes long, He has been prescribed 30mg of Epiphen twice a day.

We will start him on this tonight and hope for the best...

Thanks again for all your replies and experiences.

Glad to hear that. 30mg Epiphen/12 hours is pretty much the starter dose. Hopefully that will sort him. You might want to consider keeping a fit diary.

Also, if you want tips for online meds suppliers, let us know.

Sporky said:

Clusters are not uncommon. Ours does 36 hours of fits - a dozen or so before she was switched to the current medication; last set was only four, I think. You may need to go through a few drugs / combinations to get things under good control.

What drug regimes have you tried & what regime is it now, if you don't mind me asking?

[Sporky]

We started with Pexion, went up through the doses, with Levetiracetam as an add-on when the clusters started. That didn't seem to reduce the frequency or severity, but reduced how many seizures in each cluster a bit. We'd got up to just shy of the maximum Pexion dose and she was taking nearly two weeks to recover.

Now on the lowest dose of phenobarbital. Clusters seem to be 3 months apart, with far fewer, shorter seizures, and back to normal in maybe 5 minutes.

[Smiler.]

Sporky said:

We started with Pexion, went up through the doses, with Levetiracetam as an add-on when the clusters started. That didn't seem to reduce the frequency or severity, but reduced how many seizures in each cluster a bit. We'd got up to just shy of the maximum Pexion dose and she was taking nearly two weeks to recover.

Now on the lowest dose of phenobarbital. Clusters seem to be 3 months apart, with far fewer, shorter seizures, and back to normal in maybe 5 minutes.

Cheers.
Seems a pretty good outcome, considering the history.

[Sporky]

Yup. Every two weeks was hard to deal with. This we can manage - and, of course, better for her to have fewer episodes and spend less time zonked.

Hope the OP and dog are doing OK. It's quite terrifying when it starts.

[D1on]

So, 8 months on after his first and last (afaik) seizure, still taking his meds daily.

I got home yesterday and he was breathing fast for a few hours like he'd ran a marathon and seemed very lethargic & tired so I imagine he had a seizure whilst I wasn't home...

He's better this morning and seems back to normal...

Edited by D1on on Wednesday 25th January 03:40

[GliderRider]

Our Staffie spent his last few years on 1/2 tablet (30mg) of Epirepress (Phenobarbital), twice a day to prevent him fitting. He was very skilled at eating all the food around the tablet, leaving the half tablet laying in his licked-clean bowl. Pushing the tablet inside a chunk of sausage overcame this though.

The fits are traumatic to watch, but he didn't seem to suffer any ill-effects afterwards.