Mastiffs > Rare Breed Mastiff Discussions

Seizures In Dogue de Bordeaux

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WI Em:
Hey everyone, we went to neurology and had every test known to man to rule out physical causes of Beaumont's seizures.

As expected, there are no physical reasons to be found to explain Beaumont's seizures. The neurologist was very honest in telling me that Beau's epilepsy may not be able to be controled, but we can try.

The reasons it's going to be a challenge:

1. Beaumont is a Mastiff, and notoriously, Mastiff's don't respond well to the medications.

2. Beaumont is VERY YOUNG to have onset of seizure activity. (he was 5 1/2 months when he had his first round of seizures)

3. Beaumont's seizure history shows he has frequent, severe (grand mal), and lasting (cluster) seizure episodes. Meaning he has a grand mal (and they're long-usually more than 5 min each), gets anywhere from 5min to an hour break, and has another seizure- this will continue if intervention medication and/or medical help isn't recieved.

So the neurologist doubled Beaumont's medication- he now gets 120mg of phenobarbital twice a day. His blood levels are to be watched like a hawk to ensure he's ALWAYS within the therapeutic range.

If he has more seizures, we will be adding potassium bromide. If he has more seizures on that, there is another drug that's expensive we can try (it may be Gabapentin, but I'm not sure), and if he has seizures on that, I'll have to make a choice about the quality of life for my dogue.

I've been given 3 doses of valium so I can give Beau one rectally if he has a seizure -after 3 doses if he continues to seize, he has to go to the Emerg.Vet. I know that I can't take him anywhere without the valium.

I hope that Beaumont continues to be seizure free, but for now I'm keeping my fingers crossed and trying to be realistic about what the future may hold.

Again, thank you all so much for your support and understanding.

newflvr:
If he has more seizures, we will be adding potassium bromide. If he has more seizures on that, there is another drug that's expensive we can try (it may be Gabapentin, but I'm not sure), and if he has seizures on that, I'll have to make a choice about the quality of life for my dogue.

Please don't lose hope.  Just take it a day at a time.  We get Cowboy's gabapentin through www.canadaphar macy.com and it's about a third of the cost of even Costco.  Don't try to evaluate Beaumont's quality of life yet....as I learned with Cowboy, he is having the best life he can have considering the cards  he's been dealt.  My fingers are crossed and holding good thoughts that Beaumont will be okay!

Cowboy sends drools.....

Jo14:
Hi there

We had a dogue with epilepsy, he started at 3 years, he went without medication for another 12 months then started to have them more regularly (grand mal) so was put on phenobarb this kept him OK for another 12 months, with only a few seizures, then they started to come every week again in clusters, so his medication was upped and he was also put on bromide, things sadly over the next 12 months went downhill from there, I dont want to scare you as hopefully this wont be the case for your dogue, but Arnold continued to get worse and worse, sometimes having up to 18 seziures in 24 hours, in the last couple of weeks he was on the maximum amount of meds and it was still happening and he was starting to suffer brain damage, so we had to do what was best for him and on the advice of the vet we had to have him put to sleep, it was the hardest decision but the best for him as he had started to suffer, our vet did say though that this was not common and most dogs respond well to treatment and can live a long and happy life, we were just unlucky, I hope that your dog is OK i just thought I would let you know that I do know what you are going thorough.

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