Four Weeks

The goal was to get Iris to go 2 months without any seizures. That was one of the big reasons for starting her on Phenobarbital. Since her seizures started, Iris has averaged about four weeks between clusters. She's always been in the the 3-5 week range, usually right around 4.

Since starting on Pb, she managed to go four weeks to the day between seizures. Actually, it was four weeks almost to the hour. She passed the four week mark by about 2 hrs. Damn it. The low dose of Pb didn't buy her any more time. The two seizures she had on Sunday morning (last weekend) were a little longer than "normal" for Iris. I gave her Valium during the second seizure and she came right out of it. No more seizures after that although the Valium made her really out of it for the rest of the day. At least Valium actually does something.

I held off on acupuncture while we were gradually increasing her Pb dose (to help with the ataxia she gets from Pb). I wanted to only change one thing at a time in case she suddenly got worse, but now her med dosage is consistent so acupuncture is our "next step". I want to give it a shot before we increase her meds yet again. Since Iris' seizures started, none of the medication changes have increased the time between seizures. She was going roughly four weeks before we started her on meds. It's definitely time to try something else.