Running Out of Tricks

Last weekend was a bad seizure weekend. It had only been three weeks since Iris' last round of seizures. Damn it. She had 6 seizures total over a 21 hour period, so most of her seizures were spread pretty far apart. The post-ictal period (time following the actual seizure when the brain is still recovering, can last minutes or hours) was pretty long this time. Her last seizure was at about 4 am and she panted and paced for the next 4 hours straight. Pacing is a pretty typical post-ictal behavior for Iris. Also, she does a lot of sniffing of various objects around the house, acting like she's never seen them before. She doesn't always respond to basic commands, sometimes has trouble with her name, and occasionally forgets her housebreaking (I think she just forgets all of it because she's so confused and her mind is so foggy). Things that don't normally scare her will make her jump. Lately, her post-ictal period has been pretty short. This time, it was long. The first 4 hours were the worst with the constant pacing. She was much better after that, but I don't think she was really back to normal until Monday.

On Wednesday, we had an appointment with Dr C. He didn't like that she had so many seizures so soon. Unfortunately, he did say that we're starting to run out of tricks. Right now, Iris is on two medications (Keppra and Phenobarbital), a Chinese herb mix of Gastrodia and Uncaria, and goes for acupuncture every two weeks. None of it has significantly changed the time period between seizures. She's always been between 3-5 weeks. It seemed like the acupuncture was at least decreasing the number of seizures and shortening the post-ictal period when she would cluster. This last weekend it didn't seem to be the case. It feels like we get a brief "honeymoon period" with everything we try before we end up back at square zero.

We're trying one more thing. Dr C wants to try keeping magnets with a gold bead inside Iris' ears. It will constantly stimulate the acupuncture point there. They're a bit like a band-aid with a small, pointed magnet where the gauze should be.


Iris isn't bothered by them at all. They sit right inside and toward the front of her ears. Dr C showed me exactly where they go incase they fall out and sent me home some extra. I think the biggest problem will be keeping the fur clipped so the adhesive can stick to her skin. She already has some fuzz growing in.


Dr C told me if she does have a seizure, I can put a little pressure on the magnets during the seizure. It might help bring her around. If you look closely in the next photo, you can see the magnets inside her ears. They're barely noticeable.


We're keeping everything crossed that this helps. If it doesn't, we're starting to run out things to try. Dr C admitted that he doesn't have a lot of confidence in the magnets because we haven't seen dramatic improvement since starting acupuncture. It's still worth a shot. For now, we're still doing acupuncture every other week, but we'll see how she does between now and her next cluster. At least we're back to a more "normal" state for now.