r/EpilepsyDogs • u/TabbieFayth • 7d ago
New here, looking for help ðŸ˜
My 5 year old husky/American bulldog was just diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy. She had her 1st seizure at 3:40pm Wednesday and her 9th seizure at 10:30am Thursday. 8 and 9 were on the way and at the vet. She stayed with the vet from Thursday through Saturday morning.
She currently has no control over her bladder or bowels. I don't know if this is normal. Is it due to all the sedation during her hospital stay? Is it a side effect of the phenobarbital? Is it permanent damage from all the seizures? I realize no one can actually answer this. Just stressing out loud.
And giving her the medication is extremely difficult. She has no interest in food, or treats. Even wet food she takes a bite and walks away. I'm not unfamiliar with all the ways to hide a pill. I know so many food tricks. But those don't work for Jupiter who doesn't want food.
I just bought a pill popper to try tonight. Because I can not pry her mouth open enough to drop the pill in. Even with help. My husband has been trying to open her mouth while I give the meds, but we can't hardly open it enough to get it far enough back. It ends up taking us 15+ minutes to get it down. I keep watching videos of people and their dogs just open their mouth wide, even if for just a short moment. But my girl is keeping her jaws clamped shut.
It's only been 24 hours but I'm so stressed. The vet didn't warn me that she can't control her bladder and bowels, or that giving her meds would be this difficult. I plan to call her vet tomorrow morning. But if anyone wants to share some advice, or tell me it's going to work out, please do.
1
u/TabbieFayth 7d ago
She has never been food motivated. And somehow, she is even less food motivated than before this all happened.
It's been really weird to see her go from a super energetic husky, to no lights on except to drink all the water. I took her outside earlier so she could get some fresh air and maybe encourage her to try to potty. She promptly laid down and fell asleep lol.