I'm not laughing at you @lostmaniac but the stuff I got into when I was a kid and my only problems were (and sometimes are) 'hay fever' (pollen allergy)
Let's see, we'd get thirsty and drink from the cow or horse trough, whichever was closest; grandpa gave us fresh milk - like straight from the cow and warm milk; we'd pull carrots from the garden and wipe the dirt off them and eat them along with raw corn, radishes, peas, beans and whatever else was reasonably ripe that we could get away with. (( er, raw corn is a great laxative - lesson learned! )) and none of us kids (my cousins and I) ever got sick beyond the occasional cold that'd make the rounds at school. We'd go wandering in the woods eating blue berries and blackberries right off the bush; chew on a spearmint leaf ...
If I were growing up today with today's parents, they'd be having conniptions - but shoot for a farm boy in the middle part of the last century, that was just a normal way of life.  and for some reason as a group, we're still pretty healthy.

I grew up on horse farms doing the same thing a bite for me a bite for the horse and all the arena dirt ive eaten along with all that was there that wasnt the arena dirt... im immunocompromised and i havent been seriously sick since elementary school, the exeption being i caught latent tb at the Albuquerque va hospital about 5 years ago

Update:

Lach went nearly 6 months over the winter with no seizures. We were hopeful that somehow we'd got past them, but this Spring they started again only worse. One day he had 3, morning, noon, and night. Weeks later the clusters started. The first 2 times we got him out of it with one dose of the rectal valium. The other day I was gone and he started clustering. I had recently returned from the beach with him and hadn't unpacked the valium so my wife couldn't find it. Thanks to a miracle of timing, I was able to take her call and direct her to it. She gave the first dose around #3 and a second dose when he went into #5. He stopped after a sixth and she and my son rushed him to the ER where he arrived with a temp of 106. Had she not been able to reach me, she and my son would've likely watched him die. We've got him on Phenobarb now and he seems to be recovering slowly. He acts drunk and the Ataxia makes his hind end wobbly. I realize now I took some big risks trying to avoid the Phenobarb. If I had to do it again I would've started the Phenobarb after the very first cluster. We've never been able to pin down any triggers. [img][/img][img][/img]

Poor pup i hope the pheno works

Bless him! It must be heart breaking for you! I hope he recovers soon!

I'm sorry you are having to go through this. Hopefully the pheno will work and you can enjoy life again.

We went 2 1/2 months since starting the Pheno with no seizures, then 2 days ago I come home and Lach comes in from the backyard and I see the foam around his mouth. I could see the area on our lawn where he clearly had a seizure. He's seemed to be recovered and I thought maybe it was just a single mild one, but after a few minutes he went into a 2nd one. I gave him a valium stick and he had a 3rd before they stopped.

He's been on 68 ML 2X a day. I have to schedule with the neurologist to get their advice, but does anyone have experience and could say whether it's time to up the dose to 100 ML a day? I will get the Dr's advice but I wanted to see if anyone has had a similar experience.

We've been so lucky so far to be around and have the valium at hand when he clusters. Had I come home 30 minutes later who knows.

I’m so sorry to hear this I hope he’s doing okay!! And Im sure @twisterll will be able to help she’s pretty good at medicines!

Hi Friends,

Happy to report that Lach hasn't had a seizure in 18 months! And the few that he had leading up to this streak were short and relatively minor. I am wondering if we can start thinking about tapering off his pheno. He's always been on 68 ML 2X a day. I recall his neurologist telling me he could taper off and maybe even stop it all together but I can't remember the time line. That doctor moved away and the office is an hour away and I would be starting over with a new doctor there.

I could see people not wanting to advise, but if you have had a dog with seizures and been able to reduce or stop the pheno, I would love to hear your experience. The pheno has never seemed to affect him much other than to stop the seizures so the motivation is mostly about cost (~$20/mo) and hassle, plus I'd always rather not drug my boy if he doesn't need it.

Thanks!

I can't give any recommendations in re drugs but that sure is some good news.

What are the chances you can give your old doctor a call??

Definitely understand about not having a dog on drugs if they aren't really needed.

Yay! That's great.

I don't know about being able to get off the pheno. In my mind I imagine it would potentially depend on the reason behind the seizures. While not seizures, my boy has EBP which is a kind of lung disease that only responds to prednisone. Since the reaction he has isn't purely allergy induced we won't be able to go completely off the pred but we have been able to taper down to a very low dose and then adjust as environmental factors change. I imagine you should be able to taper some until you find the lowest dose that is effective but depending on what was doing the triggering I wouldn't hold my breath on being able to completely go off.

If you know where the other vet is located I would definitely give him a call, even though everything that vet did should be available to a current vet in his file. Sometimes vets will make notes about such things in the file but that's never a guarantee.

Hi,
My Puzzle has seizures. They started when he was younger after I gave him Simparica Trio.
He is now 5, still on pheno.
It seems that separation anxiety, and moving would trigger them.
So when he is anxious.
Anyway, I give him 34.2mg of pheno. 1.5 twice a day.
When they started him on them, they wanted me to give him 3 every 8 hours. ( he weighs 72lbs.)
It really depends on how your dog is doing as to what level of pheno. Needs to be in their system at all times.
I’m not a Veterinarian or recommend changing your meds.
But Pheno is my personal preference for my Puzzle.
Your Vet. Should be doing blood tests every so often as well.

Hi PDN,
Thanks for sharing your experience. Lachlan is ~72lbs as well and the seizures started right around age 2 which I guess is standard. He will be 6 this April and at that point will have gone 2+ years without a seizure. We have his levels tested every 6 months and they've always been in range. He gets 1 64mg pill twice a day, 9am and 9pm. His seizures would usually happen when he was at rest but not always. We never identified a definite trigger but since he never had one in the winter months (Oct-Mar) I've suspected things like bug and weed spray.

How long has it been since Puzzle had a seizure and do you think he'll always be on the Pheno?

Hello all. New to this site. Just put my beloved Sydney down yesterday with cancer. He was a Australian/husky mix. Best friend I ever had. If you don't know yet , there is a test out there, OnkoK9 multi-cancer early detection blood test showing great results. Purebred dogs sould get tested as early as 5, all other dogs by 8. Why my vet never mention is a question I'll be asking him now Sydneys journey is over. Heartbroken beyond belief. But now must focus all my attention on my 4.5 year old husky Tyler who has seizures. Rescued Tyler the day he turned 2 months old. Runt of a 7 pup litter, he was chewed up and malnourished. Owners were told by breeder to let him die. Turned into a big happy knucklehead of a dog, just loveable in every way. Not 1 issue until , at 3 years and 3 months I took him in for his first dental cleaning on a Saturday morning. He came home still doped up and wasn't right all night through all day Sunday. Monday morning, 3 oclock the first seizure struck, lasting about 1 minute. Swimming on his side, foaming at the mouth, urinating etc. 2nd seizure hit at 5 am, followed by a third at 7. Brought him in to the vet at 8 to go over everything, with Tyler being normal by then. No issues, not 1 seizure until his next dental cleaning, 14 months later. Precautions supposedly taken with anti seizure meds, lower anesthesia etc. 7 seizures, followed 6 weeks later by Tylers first non dental seizure. He now has been on Keppra 1250 mg morning and night for 6 months. has seizures about every 5-6 weeks, back to back about 1-2 minutes apart. I am thinking about getting him off Keppra gradually. Any thoughts on this? or past experience with getting off Keppra? Thanks in advance.

So sorry to hear about Sydney. I can say our boy Lach had one light seizure episode at the vet under some sedation but I can't say we say a definite pattern. For us it's seemed more seasonal, seizures March to September, no seizures the rest of the year. He's been on Pheno and I don't know anything about Keppra, but Lach is ~26 months with no seizures and I am planning to scale back his pheno starting this fall. Some vets say they should stay on the meds for life and others suggest that can be weaned off.

Lachlan had another seizure last night while we were watching TV. He was snoozing in the corner when he rose up and started banging around.  Our 15 year old black cat Flip, who has accepted Lach as part of the family but still keeps him at arms length, jumps out of my lap and rushed over to help.  I think he assumed Lach was being attacked by something and was going over to join the fight.  Once he got to him and realized there was no attacker, he stayed by him, sniffing his tail and looking concerned.  As painful as it is, watching these seizures, it was heart warming to see our cat's allegiance!

Just a single seizure this time.  It was fairly long and the recovery was slow.  No pee but lots of slimy mouth foam.  Now when he has them I give him sedatives and alternate Keppra with his Pheno for the following couple days.  

Poor Lach. Hopefully he has a good recovery. It's amazing how much animals bond even if they don't always show it. My white male, kye, we always assumes doesn't care about anything but he did notice when my other male, Keno, passes several years ago. Looked around for him and got really clingy for a while like he was afraid that we may have gotten rid of Keno and he didn't want to be next. The most "emotion" we've ever seen from that dog.