Probably one of the most frightening events an owner can go through is seeing their pet experience a seizure. Witnessing the complete loss of control, and not knowing when it will end is incredibly scary.
Making seizures even more frightening is the amount of misinformation out there about them. If your dog has a seizure the first thing you’ll want to do is take him to the vet to try to determine the cause. The second thing you should do is to get educated about the cause of seizures and the available treatments. The following information is a great start.
Myth #1: Dogs can swallow their tongues while having a seizure
It’s actually physically impossible for a dog (or a person) to swallow their tongue. The tongue is anchored to the bottom of the mouth by a band of tissue known as the frenulum, and this keeps the tongue in place during a seizure as well as other times.
When dogs are having a seizure is it possible for them to involuntarily bite their tongues, which leads to bleeding and swelling. However, it’s dangerous to put your hands inside the mouth of a dog experiencing a seizure in order to try to keep the tongue out of the way of the teeth, as you could very easy get inadvertently bitten.
Myth #2: Seizures=epilepsy
Many people equate seizures with epilepsy; however, there are many, many things that can make a dog have a seizure. Certainly many dogs that have seizures do also have epilepsy, but because there is no specific test for epilepsy, we have to do multiple tests and consider multiple possibilities before we can arrive at that diagnosis. The reason for this? There’s absolutely no test for epilepsy.
Causes of seizures are split into two general categories: intra-cranial, meaning causes in the brain, and extra-cranial, meaning causes from elsewhere in the body. The intra-cranial category certainly includes epilepsy, but it also includes things like brain tumors and encephalitis, which is severe infection and or inflammation of the brain.
Extra-cranial causes of seizures include things like severe low blood sugar, liver failure, toxin ingestion, lead poisoning, and drug reactions.
Myth #3: Anti-seizure medications fix everything, right?
Maybe, and maybe not. If a dog has epilepsy, anti-seizure medications like phenobarbital can severely reduce the frequencies of seizures and help the dog live a mostly normal life. But one of the most important reasons to avoid assuming a dog has epilepsy when it has seizures is that many of the other causes of seizures are curable, if treated appropriately. That’s why we have to do the work to figure out the cause of the seizures, if possible, before making our next move.
Myth #4: Seizures are always over in a few minutes
Hopefully seizures do end fairly quickly. And it’s always important to try to time the duration of the seizure, as this information may be important to your vet later. But if a seizure isn’t ending in the course of a few minutes, it’s important to seek emergency care. Take the necessary steps to transport your dog carefully and safely, but get him to the vet.
The reason is that the longer a seizure continues, the more difficult it gets to stop it. Dogs can experience something known as status epilepticus, which means a seizure that cannot be stopped. This is a very dangerous condition, as body temperatures can become quite high and permanent brain damage can occur. If your dog has a seizure disorder and you know that you cannot transport him safely due to his size or other factors, ask your vet to dispense the drug diazepam (Valium), which can be given in the rectum, and which is often successful at arresting seizure activity.
Myth #5: Seizures always cause unconsciousness
There are a couple of different types of seizures. Most of us have heard of grand mal seizures, where the patient completely loses consciousness, makes paddling motions with the front and rear legs, and often salivates excessively and loses control of the bladder and bowels. But there are also focal seizures, in which the patient does not fully lose consciousness, but we’ll see twitching of the limbs, eyelids, or ears on only one side of the body. This type of seizure only affects one half of the brain, but can progress to involve both sides of the brain, and to a grand mal seizure.