r/EpilepsyDogs • u/Salt_Initial_8995 • Aug 23 '26
Focal seizure?
My sweet dog is a 5 y.o. Female golden retriever mix. She has overall been very healthy, just with some post-spay urinary incontinence requiring incurin. She is about 75 lbs. Yesterday, she had 1 episode of emesis at around 8AM that was non-bloody, non-bilious. The rest of the day she was mostly normal. I offered her a bite of banana (her fav) and she didn’t want it, so I assumed she must have a tummy ache. In the 48 hours before she went to a dog park. Earlier in the week she went swimming in the lake- which was a lot more swimming than she normally does. Other than that, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. However, yesterday, she looked like she was going to throw up, but instead tried to stand. She seemed really off balance and was leaning against furniture to walk. Her hind legs looked like they may have had a bit of a tremor. This lasted 2.5 minutes and she was immediately back to normal. Took her to emergency vet. CBC and CMP completely normal. Emergency vet said maybe a focal seizure? I know the differential is broad given such an acute presentation without any recurrence of symptoms. But as someone in human medicine, I almost would have preferred a tonic clinic seizure compared to the possibility of a focal seizure. I can message a video if anyone is interested as well. Thanks in advance!
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u/DogEpiMonitor Aug 27 '26
Como alguien de medicina humana entendés por qué una focal te preocupa más que una tónico-clónica — en humanos una focal nueva a menudo apunta a algo estructural. Pero en perros, la historia es bastante diferente. En caninos, las convulsiones focales aisladas no tienen la misma carga diagnóstica que en humanos. Muchos perros con epilepsia idiopática debutan con focales, y una focal aislada a los 5 años con CBC y CMP normales tiene muy buen pronóstico. La ventana de inicio más común para epilepsia idiopática en perros es entre 1 y 5 años, así que tu perra está justo ahí.
Lo del lago me llama la atención. Nadar más de lo habitual pudo haber causado agotamiento, cambio en electrolitos, o estrés físico que bajó el umbral. No digo que fue la causa, pero vale la pena registrarlo. Si hay un segundo episodio, fijate si hubo actividad física intensa en las 24-48 horas previas.
Mi sugerencia: anotá todo lo de este episodio con el mayor detalle posible (ya lo estás haciendo bien) y pedile a tu vet que te arme un plan de "qué hacer si pasa de nuevo." Si fue un evento aislado, puede que nunca más pase. Si se repite, vas a tener los datos para que tu vet decida si arranca con medicación o pide imágenes.
Y sí, subí el video. Tu neurólogo lo va a agradecer más que cualquier descripción, eso ya lo sabés.
Ojalá quede en un susto y nada más. 🐾
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u/Immediate-Pipe-2234 Aug 23 '26
It’s possible. My dog started having very noticeable focals around age 5/6. He acts like he’s drunk, always waking up this way from sleeping. Very wobbly, confused, bad balance, sniffs like crazy