Even The Best Option Isn’t A Good One

I spoke with the vet Monday, and was able to email him the clip of Reyna’s seizure (which is here, if you’re interested in seeing it). He said that it looks like a pretty classic partial seizure, which is definitely better than a grand mal seizure. The vet seems to think its most likely canine epilepsy, although he did say that the second most likely option is a brain tumor. He told me about a few other potential causes, but said that, based on her breed, history, and most recent blood work, he feels comfortable ruling out those other options. The bad part is that there is no test for epilepsy – instead, it becomes the default diagnosis after everything else has been ruled out. And all those other tests could run about $3,000. Since he’s saying there are really only two possibilities, I’m leaning towards having a test done just to rule out the brain tumor. And then I’ll feel better about calling it epilepsy.

For now, the vet wants to treat her with benign neglect. In other words, he wants me to watch her for a few more days, and let him know on Monday how many more seizures she’s had. I really wish there were some way for her to tell me if she’s having any while I’m at work. She had three on Saturday, and that makes me worry about what might be happening when I’m not home. If we get really lucky, this will turn out to be a phase that she’ll cycle through, like she did last fall. No way to know when they might start back again, of course. And that’s probably what bothers me the most...I really want to know what’s triggering these. Since I haven’t been out of town in a month, I think its pretty safe to say its not stress over me traveling.

If she doesn’t stop having the seizures fairly soon, the vet said there’s a couple of medicine options. The best is Phenobarbital, but she can’t have that. It processes through the liver, and the pain meds she’s on for her hips also process through the liver. Adding the Phenolbarb would basically destroy her liver, which really isn’t a good thing. And the pain meds are doing a good job, so we don’t want to change those out for something new unless we really have to. The second option is potassium bromide, but that takes 30 to 45 days to get in her system. So, if we start her on that now, and the seizures stop, we’ll never really know if they stopped because it was a phase or if the meds did their job. And we really don’t want to keep popping her on and off of meds, especially when they take so long to get in and out of her system.

I just keep thinking that her allergies, her auto immune issues, her OCD, and now these seizures, are all in some way connected. Because I know she just doesn’t wake up in the morning and decide to eat her tail. Something sparks it, but I don’t know what. The vet does a great job of treating the symptoms, but we haven’t found the root cause of her problems. I asked the vet about it, and he said that modern medicine would say no, these aren’t connected, but that Chinese medicine would say yes, of course they are. Anyone know a good vet trained in Chinese medicine?