Fingers crossed the improvements continue
In a previous post, I explained about our golden retriever Archie who has epilepsy.
He was diagnosed when he was three and a half and once we had him on a regime of mediation, we were experiencing a seizure every 4 – 6 weeks. These were quite bad and usually happened in the early hours, leaving us exhausted the following day.
However, back in the summer, he started having seizures every 2 weeks, which proved tiring for all of us.
We spoke with our vet and she suggested using a different type of medication which had helped another dog who also suffered from epilepsy. It was a human painkiller and had been used to treat arthritis, but while the dog was receiving it he didn’t have a seizure.
So, we started on the new pills. He seemed a little more tired in the first week or so, which was probably the effect the painkiller element was having, but he then seemed to be more alert. This was so pleasing to see as I am sure the medication he was on was suppressing a lot of his natural joy for life, which had always concerned us.
Then 3 weeks in he had a fit at 4 am one Friday morning. However, this was nothing like the previous ones. When we got downstairs and opened his crate he was already coming out of the fit. He was more aware of what was going on, and we didn’t need to give him as higher a dose of the medication we used to following a fit.
He allowed himself time to recover before trying to get up and there was no manic running around the kitchen bumping into everything. There was also no in/out, in/out of the garden which had been normal and we even managed to put him back to bed (which meant we could go back to bed too)!
We continued with the new pills and after a month, we phased out one of the others. This really pleased us as he has started coming back to the old Archie the one we had before all this began. He is more active and interested in life and I believe a lot happier in himself.
Fingers crossed it continues.