Pink Elephants

Iris had a rough couple of days last weekend. Eleven seizures in 36 hours.

She started seizing every couple hours Fri night. I got her in to see her regular vet first thing on Saturday morning (lucky us! Her regular vet happened to be the vet available to squeeze us in), and we decided to start Iris on a low does of Phenobarbital. Iris didn't tolerate a high dose well last time we tried it. Also, she got a Valium injection while we were there. Usually the side effect of Valium is drowsiness. Not so for Iris. She gets really loopy and off balance, but not drowsy. Not quite on this planet mentally but not ready for dreamland either.

We decided to start Iris on a very low dose of Pb to help her adjust to it (about 1/3 of what a dog her size would start on if starting on only Pb). She'll also stay on her full dose of Keppra so that we can keep her on a lower amount of Pb. In 2 weeks, we'll double her Pb (so 2/3 of a "normal" dose).

The Valium on Sat bought Iris roughly a 6 hr break from seizing. Dr K sent me home with a couple doses of Valium, which bought us another break from seizing but still didn't interrupt her cycle. She was back to seizing as soon as it wore off. At that point, I gave her a higher dose of Pb and that seemed to do the trick. No more seizures since Sunday morning, and I've weaned her back to the very low dose.

Interesting enough, Phenobarbital doesn't make Iris drowsy either. She's been very out of it mentally, and at the beginning of the week she would not relax. She was very sniffy, sniffing everything in the house multiple times. Acting very nervous, pacing, panting, not sleeping through the night. Jumping at little sounds. She was so mentally out of it that she was having trouble with basic commands and housebreaking. Iris never has accidents in the house, but unless I was taking her out every 2 hrs, she wasn't remembering to go outside. Pb makes her thirsty so she was drinking more water than usual which wasn't helping. Also, Iris really looked like she was hallucinating? She was very worried, eyes darting around the room looking at nothing in particular. It was taking her longer to recognize people/things. I'm pretty sure she was seeing pink elephants. Or maybe heffalumps and woozles.



Thankfully, Iris seems like she's finally getting back to normal. Last night was the first night where she didn't look like she was hallucinating and she was actually able to relax on the couch while I worked on a project. We both got a good night's sleep.

This was by far her worst round of seizures yet. I'm not sure what triggered it. I've been without a car for the last couple weeks and have been running on my roommate's schedule. Her schedule is a lot less consistent than mine meaning Iris' schedule was really varied. Did that throw Iris off? Or my roommate had been working on an art project on Thurs. Did the glues from that set her off? I wish I knew.

For now, the plan is to keep Iris on both Pb and Keppra in hopes of keeping her on a lower dose of Pb long term. The goal is to go 2 months without any seizures, and at that point we'll think about lowering her meds, probably the Keppra dose. I've also been doing some research on acupuncture. Some dogs have pretty positive results, so I think that's going to be our next step. Does anyone know a vet who does acupuncture in the area that they'd recommend?