Cheyenne's Seizures
Quick list of Cheyenne's Veterinary Medical tests

When we first brought Cheyenne home, when she was about 9 weeks old, she was everything you would expect in a cute fluffy puppy. For the next 5 weeks, just about every day we went on some adventure to let Cheyenne experience something new. Whether it was a new place (the grooming shop, the airport, etc.), a new thing (a fire hydrant, some pieces of agility equipment, etc.), or a new person. This was critical in providing Cheyenne with the social foundations she was later going to need; although we did not know it at the time.

When Cheyenne was just about 14 weeks old, I was videotaping Cheyenne out in the yard. At one point, she sat down and acted confused. When she started to get up, all of her legs were shaking. Within seconds, she was down on the ground (I stopped videotaping at this point), her feet were paddling, her jaw was opening and closing she was drooling heavy sticky saliva, and she was staring vacantly forward. I immediately knew she was having a tonic-clonic (formerly grand mal) seizure, and we rushed her to the emergency clinic. Shortly afterwards we contacted a board certified Veterinary Neurologist for an appointment to examine Cheyenne.

A few days later we were coming back home after a walk, when she sat down on the grass and her mouth opened and closed rapidly and her eyes rapidly blinked. This only lasted for 5 or 10 seconds. We noted it, but never having experiences canine focal seizures before, we did not know it for what it was.

At the time, we had not been able to determine if the seizures were related to the two Distemper vaccines (one at 8 weeks by the breeder and the second at 13 weeks by us) given her prior to this seizure. There is some anecdotal evidence of seizures being the result of a vaccination, but there are no clinical studies of which I am aware.

We started searching the internet for anything and everything we could find regarding canine seizure disorders (otherwise known as canine epilepsy) and especially as it concerned young puppies. Having seizures at 14 weeks old is very atypical, and not a particularly good sign for long term health.

Over the next month, Cheyenne had several more seizures; about one every 7 to 9 days. During this time we were in contact with a Veterinary Neurology specialist to determine what we could do.

One thing which is true about Cheyenne's seizures: they are very atypical. Most seizures occur while the dog is sleeping or just waking up. Almost all of Cheyenne's seizures have been right after periods of exercise or stress. This was the reason for the cardiology tests.

At the recommendation of a board certified Veterinary Neorologist, we did a number of blood tests. As there was nothing really abnormal with all the blood tests, we talked to a board certified Veterinary Cardiology specialist to see if there might be anything cardiac related which might result in her seizures. This was prompted by the exercise and stress related nature of Cheyenne's seizures.

Her cardiac exam and ultrasound were normal. Over the next two months, she wore two cardiac monitors and a Holter Monitor in an effort to capture any cardiac abnormalities which might identify if Cheyenne was suffering from Syncope. A syncoptic episode could result in seizure like effects. Nothing except some exercise related tachycardia (or taccacardia) showed up on any of the monitors. During these periods of tachycardia, Cheyenne's heartbeat was in the mid-200s (240 - 260). The cardiologist did not seem to believe this was a problem.

As nothing positive show up on the cardiac tests, Cheyenne had a bile acids test to check for a liver shunt, an MRI and a spinal tap to see if there was any damage to her brain, or if there was anything abnormal with her spinal fluid. These abnormalities would have indicated some more exotic issues, such as neurologic distemper.

After the initial round of tests, the neurologist started Cheyenne on Zonisamide (or Excegran or Zonegran) as this medication seems to be very well tolerated by most dogs, and does not have some of the side effects of some of the other anti-convulant drugs.

Several weeks on the Zonisamide seemed to have no affect on Cheyenne's seizures. As a result, the neurologist started Cheyenne on Phenobarbital. Cheyenne was on these two drugs for several more weeks, increasing the dosages of both, with no real affect on her seizures. They were still coming about once a week.

In April 2010, Cheyenne started getting seizures much more frequently. Not every day, but about every two or three days. At this point, the neurologist recommended we start Cheyenne on Potassium Bromide (or KBr).

We had just started the loading dose, when Cheyenne experienced her first cluster seizure. In simple terms, this is a number of tonic-clonic seizures in a short period of time. In Cheyenne's case, it was three seizures in under 24 hours.

After the third seizure, we admitted Cheyenne to the Veterinary Hospital, as we did not want her to go into status epilepticus, or simply status. This is where the dog is in continuous seizure; which is life threatening. Once at the hospital intensive care unit (ICU), they accelerated her KBr loading and waited to make sure she was seizure free for 24 hours.

We were waiting for Cheyenne to get the the theraputic KBr level, which can take from 4 to 6 weeks, when two weeks after her hospital stay, Cheyenne had 4 seizures in about 12 hours. Again, I took her to the hospital where she was admitted to the ICU to make sure she did not go into status. Things were not looking good.

During this second stay, the neurologist started Cheyenne on levetiracetam (or Keppra). Cheyenne also had a second MRI and spinal tap because of the increase in the frequency of her seizures. Again, they came back negative.

In the 48 hours since Cheyenne came home from her second hospital stay, she had two small tonic-clonic seizures, each lasting for only about 15 seconds. In the following weeks, she had a couple more of these mini seizures. Consulting with the Neurologist, she said these mini seizures were most likely attenuated tonic-clonic seizures because of all the medications Cheyenne is receiving.

Unfortunately, Cheyenne became very ataxic (loss of muscle coordination) for about six weeks, to the point where she had great difficulty moving around. As a result, we are going to be working with her neurologist to reduce some of the dosages of the various medications to try and get her to be less ataxic.

After doing some extensive research into pedigrees and Belgian Sheepdogs with documented seizures, we were able to determined Cheyenne had related dogs with seizures from both the sire and dam. As documented by the University of California, Davis "The mode of [epilepsy] inheritance has been defined for the Belgian Tervuren and Belgian Sheepdog", giving a strong indication as to the possible source of Cheyenne's seizures. As a side note, Cheyenne has submitted a blood sample as well as a copy of her complete medical history to be a part of this study.

At the end of May 2010, Cheyenne suffered her worst cluster seizure. Over a period of 5 days, she had 49 seizures (tonic-clonic and absence) we counted. There may have been more. As a result, a second neurologist had us start Cheyenne on Gabapentin in an effort to break the cluster seizure.

As of the first week of June, Cheyenne seems to have stabilized somewhat. She is still a bit ataxic, but is back to doing a number of the things she was doing as a puppy prior to all the anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs). She is not a completely normal puppy, but her quality of life is much better than it has been recently.