Tasha and her epilepsy

I thought I'd just talk about Tasha's epilepsy.

She began seizuring at the age of 2 and turned out to have very severe epilepsy. She had grand mal seizures, preceded with the pre-itical phase (or the "Code Red Emergency phase"). Her seizures clustered into groups of about 7, repeating every 3 hours for about 3 days, returning about every 2-3 months. Let me tell you it was a nightmare.

Her first seizure was close to Christmas and by March her seizures were becoming progressively worse. There were also now being followed by a post-itical phase which was dangerous and frightening as she would get up and run around the house without any awareness of what she was doing.

After the vets realised that valium was ineffective, we soon concocted a combination of drugs that, once they were all up to therapeutic levels, completely controlled her seizures. By that fall her seizures had become less severe, and she completely stopped seizuring by the following summer (she was then 3). To my knowledge, she never seizured again.

Sadly, Tasha passed away at the age of 5. She (and all her kin) escaped from the yard when the back gate was left open and died from injuries sustained when hit by a car. Losing Tasha was one of the most heart breaking and life altering events of my life. The time we spent together fighting her epilepsy had brought her closer to me than I have ever been with any other living being, husky or human!

Tasha's meds were:

Phenobarbital
Chlorazepate
Potassium Bromide (KBr)

I will look up her doses and included those at a later date.

I've included some good links on epilepsy on the sidebar, but will also look up some of my old info to see if there are any that I missed. When Tasha first started seizuring, I signed up on the canine epilepsy news group and found that to be a wonderful resource not only for alternate therapies, but also for moral support as I struggled with caring for Tasha.

Please feel free to comment or ask me questions.

Sorcha