Hi Synchrony - To answer your question -- Yes, I know two children who have a history of seizures and resulting developmental delays. (Both talk and walk fine now, though they're 14...) They are both lovely boys, kind, lively, fun, well-mannered, and a pleasure to be around. They're both struggling in school and in special education classes, which is how I know them. There's also the possibility that I (and you) know many other children who had early seizures, but that they're indistinguishable from their peers now, so we don't recognize them. I looked at your link from the other post, and see that you are in the UK. (She's darling, by the way!) As an American, I don't know exactly how your health system works, but I do know that there are resources available for children with developmental delays (and your daughter's development IS delayed at this point), and that as the parent, you will need to PUSH hard to make things happen. Your daughter should qualify for services -- at the very least, Speech Therapy to help her learn to talk, and Physical Therapy to help her learn to walk. I assume her seizures are being taken seriously from a medical perspective? And that she is receiving proper treatment to help prevent future seizures? Her Pediatrician or Neurologist should be able to give you some information about what services are available in your area to help your daughter catch up to her peers. If they can't or won't refer you immediately, please look for parents' groups in your area. Search online, call the schools -- keep looking because they are out there. (You can usually find a group for parents of autistic children, and even though it's not the same problem, they should be able to tell you what steps to take to get your daughter the kind of help she needs to get started.) Quite simply, there is no one else on the planet who cares about your daughter's future as much as you do, and you need to remember this at all times -- particularly when folks tell you to relax and wait and let 'the experts' lead the way. If you 'wait patiently', that means your daughter does not get the services she needs.

Housefairy, please don't make uninformed inferences. Heartworm prevention is a very safe medication, it stays in a dog's system for a maximum of 2 days and it prevents a DEADLY disease. Some breed dogs with MDR deficiency, which is generally NOT found in labs, can't take HIGH doses of ivermectin, but are completely OK with the low dose found in some brands of heartworm prevention. They can also safely take milbemycin, selamectin, and other preventions. Frontline flea control is not at all absorbed into a dog's system so that is also completely safe. It also prevents TICKS which transmit diseases that cause SEIZURES. There is absolutely no reason what so ever to discontinue these extremely important medications. The fact that she's had "tests" is not very informative. I can think of a lot of tests that I would run in an older dog with seizures, including but not limited to: complete exam with lesion localization Phenobarbital level CBC chemistry profile urinalysis Bile acids profile thyroid panel tick born disease panel CSF tap chest radiographs abdominal ultrasound When deciding to run a test of any type one has to consider what treatment will change based on the results of the test. So let's say the MRI is completely normal- what do you do? What if it shows a brain tumor- will the friend treat it? Not too many hospitals can do definitive treatment on a brain tumor, maybe they can do chemo or radiation and make the dog more comfortable for a while but maybe not. Also the cost for these treatments can be high. Pretty much when a dog older than 7 starts having seizures, unless you can rule out tick born, hypoT4, or infectious causes you're going to end up with a brain tumor, which is what they are looking for with an MRI. I doubt I'd do it in this case because if my other non-invasive tests were negative it's most likely a brain tumor and I wouldn't treat it; I'd just try to make her more comfortable. There are also other medications such as potassium bromide and gabapentin which can be added to phenobarbital to help prevent seizures. That assumes the proper dose is being given now, which you can tell only by testing the levels. At this point, if the other tests have been done and were negative, I'd try to stop the seizures and if I couldn't, I would let her go. That's just me. Some people just NEED to know what is wrong before letting their pets go and if they have the funds to do this, it's their business and their perogative, which is also a good choice. My only objection is to continue to allow seizures without relief. I would definitely feel 100% comfortable in recommending euthanasia for refractory seizures, and in fact have done so. I'm really sorry that she is going through this. End of life decisions are very personal and I think most people make better decisions when they are given correct information and all of the options. It is up to the owner to decide what to do with the information, for the most part. If the vet feels the patient is suffering and the owner is in denial, that is a different situation. But it sounds like your friend is trying to relieve suffering while finding a diagnosis. As long as it doesn't go too long and they are still trying to control the symptoms (which I think could be better), and they are being realistic about what the most likely diagnosis is, then it's their choice to get an MRI or not.

I'm sorry this happened and witnessing a full tonic-clonic (Grand Mal) seizure for the first time is very, very scary. The first thing you need to know is that Cedar was unconscious throughout and not feeling any pain. Cedar will need to rest for a while and may seem a bit woozy for a few days, but the seizure itself was almost certainly more upsetting for you than for her. You did the right thing by rushing her to the emergency vet because a 'continuous' seizure (lasting more than 4-5 minutes) or a'cluster' seizures (dog comes round and then has another seizure withing a few minutes or hours) are real emergencies. The dog can overheat from the seizure activity and die fairly quickly or the repeated and violent seizures can cause brain damage. Late onset seizures do indicate that something serious may be going on so you will need to take her to a vet ASAP and get a full workup. It could be a brain tumor, but also head trauma, getting into something toxic, or low thyroid or heart worm disease. Your vet needs to rule out other things before you go to the 'worst case' scenario of a brain tumor. He/she might also recommend just putting Cedar on anti-seizure meds rather than going the CT scan and spinal tap route to rule out a brain tumor at this stage. It really depends on overall health. Phenobarbital is usually the first med recommended by vets for seizures, with Potassium Bromide a close second. Both are quite affordable. There are several other meds out there but those tend to be more expensive. One thing your vet will ask you to do is keep a log of all seizures. You should start this now, noting down everything you think happened in the last couple of days - both behaviorally and physically, how long the seizure lasted and what Cedar's recovery time is. Also note down any behavioral changes as they might indicate possible brain damage. I have had two dogs who developed late onset seizures (at 10 and 11) in the past. They lived for three or four years quite happily and with good quality of life on seizure meds and may have had very slow growing brain tumors. We decided in consultation with our vet just to treat the symptoms not go for expensive diagnostics. They had developed other serious medical conditions when we reluctantly decided to let them go for their own sakes. The seizures were well controlled for quite a few years. On the other hand, I have a younger dog with epilepsy right now. He was only 5 at onset, and is hyper-sensitive to many different drugs. As his seizures were hard to control with the usual meds, we decided to go ahead with the CT scan and spinal tap to rule out a possible brain tumor. It was $$$ but worth it for our peace of mind. He is also on a new to us med (Keppra) because he needed really high doses of Phenobarbital and we were afraid of liver damage - the pros and cons of various anti-seizure meds is another thing to discuss with your vet. I've included a link for a website with a lot more useful information on dogs with seizures below. I hope all this helps and wish you and Cedar the best. Remember, you know Cedar best, and will make the best decisions for her quality of life because you love her. Here is a link that might be useful: canine epilepsy guardian angels

epilepsy is a very common disease in both dogs and cats and I have treated hundreds of these patients, most with excellent results (not all, though). Usually for cats phenobarb works well as a single drug treatment, twice a day and though some cats are a bit 'stoned' for the first week or so, most return to totally normal behavior and activity. The dose usually started is a low end dose and then increased if the patient continues to have 'too frequent' seizures... what does that mean? It means that all epilepsy cases are assumed to still have a seizure now and then (many thankfully never have another seizure while on meds), but there is an 'acceptable' seizure frequency (usually one mild one every 2-3 months is considered exceptable, though it would of course be nice if no patients ever had another seizure again). Most seizures do not adversely affect cats or dogs unless they are extremely violent or last for a long time (meaning over a few minutes). Long seizures can result in high body temperature, sometimes so high (over 107F) that the brain will start to be come damaged. . This is why you should always rush your pet in if they are seizing continuously. But we rarely ask our clients to bring in their pets if the seizure was a short one and if they seem OK afterwards.. there is little we are going to do about it afterwards and blood work is almost always normal. Another exception to this non-intervention is if your pet is having 'cluster seizures; (a lot in a row- several in a short period or even in a day).. then we recommend hospitalizing and monitoring closely so we can give injectable medications instead of oral ones to helps stop the cluster. So to answer your questions, putting your cat on phenobarb MAY, and with luck, WILL prevent all future seizures, but there is certainly no guarantee. Seizures are 'too often' if they are violent (then even one is too often) or more frequent than one every 1-2 months. There is nothing else you can do to minimize the risk of seizures other than medication. You can minimize the risk of secondary problems during a seizure by making sure your pet cannot fall into a swimming pool or down a long flight of stairs by keeping your pet away from such areas at all times (hard to do keep cats from stairs, though). Seizures can look painful, but from what most people that have epilepsy say, it is usually not painful.. .just scary and eventually annoying (when they are finaliy used to having them)... and disorienting. I have no idea what nuroclav is... must be either a misspelling or some brand name of another drug (maybe a brand name for midazolam or valium I have not heard of?).