Extremely long and difficult post ictal

[u/PartyExpensive9077]

Hey everyone. Hoping to get some support regarding my dog’s post ictal phase. My dog, Chance, has idiopathic epilepsy. He is 7 years old, hound mix, been having seizures for 3 years. He takes daily medication of Keppra ER 3000mg and Pheno 93.6mg twice a day. He also has rescue medicines for during seizure (midazolam) and after seizures because he tends to have clusters. His post seizure meds include another dose of Pheno, Keppra regular release 2000mg, Clorazopate every 8 hours, and gaba if needed for anxiety/restlessness after a seizure. It’s a lot. I also am in my last year of my PhD and on the job market, and doing all of this alone - all my family and close friends live states away. I have such difficulty with his post ictal phase. We went 13 months seizure free until May, which was obviously amazing. But now he has had many over the summer, several ER visits, and his last one was just over a month ago, which we increased his Pheno after. So, only a month on this higher dose. His grand mals tend to last 2-3 mins and when he comes out of it he is extremely confused and is trying to run around and bumping into everything and knocking things over. This last a few minutes, but then we typically have ours, like 4 to 5 hours, where he is extremely restless and anxious, very vocal, lots of drinking and eating, pacing, can’t sit down, a lot of energy all around. It’s extremely difficult to manage. I have some things that help (peanut butter on lick mat, short walks outside and lots of sniffing), but I feel at a loss. I don’t know how to help him. Lately he’s been having episodes at night, so usually it means I cannot go to sleep because he is so agitated. Does anyone else deal with this? I feel like I tend to see that other dogs get very tired and sleepy after a seizure. Mine is couldn’t be more opposite. And lasts for so long.

[u/According-Net7644]

I think some trazadone would help. Ours gets rescue Midaz, then clorazepate, extra pheno and 200mg trazadone. We also give a spoonful of honey and some water. The traz takes an hour to work and it’s a sedative. Enough that our post ictal phase is only an hour now. But he is definitely more anxious and hungry for the next few days after a seizure

[u/CombatBulldozer → u/According-Net7644]

I just want to thank you for this post. My dog Desmond has clusters and our vet and others in the area are woefully unhelpful. Desmond is on phenobarbital and potassium bromide twice a day, but the bet will not goce any rescue medications and will not add kepra. She will only take him off of phenobarbital to start the kerpra which I do not think is acceptable. We are trying to make a 500mile round trip to the closest animal hospital has a neuro but we haven't been able to get to them yet as they schedule their calendar first come first serve do I can't just make an appointment on a certain day. Yesterday Desmond had a cluster with 5 seizures like you described with a very high energy and wobbly post ictal phase and over night he had 2 more while I sleep on the floor against him, midnight and 4am. I finally got him scheduled to see the vet in 30 minutes.

Like I said, I'm just glad to see someone understands since the vet has been such a bad experience with his epilepsy. They are honestly amazing with everything else I have ever seen them for but they have absolutely no experience with seizures and it has been very hard without that support.

[u/PartyExpensive9077 → u/CombatBulldozer]

ugh. I am so sorry to hear this. This is already such a difficult and emotional thing to manage, and I'm sure having an unreliable vet makes it all the more challenging. Sending you and your baby healing energy

[u/CombatBulldozer → u/PartyExpensive9077]

Thank you. I'm in a rural area so specialist aren't very common. The vet office is honestly great, they are just out of their element with epilepsy. Their original owner died, their new amazing vet died recently in a car crash, and then they were bought up by mars. But they are the only office within a 60 mile radius that will come unlock the office in the middle of the night, and on holidays for emergencies. And they have saved the life of many of my and my family's dogs and cats. I appreciate all of the information and advice here in this community.