Tristan has been diagnosed as epileptic since he was just one year old and has been on a combination of phenobarbitone and potassium bromide liquid. Apart from one seizure just before we upped sticks from Scotland to change job and home and everything when he had a fit the day before we moved (just to keep me on my toes) he has been pretty much fit-free for years. In the past month he's had three fits and all with the same pattern of behaviour prior to them. Firstly he has seemed off colour the morning of the fits, shivering and looking unhappy with himself and constantly coughing like he has a furball stuck, producing nothing most of the time when he hacks but sometimes just a little white froth. A couple of hours later he has what I would describe as a fairly minor seizure (they've never been very severe in that he remains conscious of his environment and doesn't lose control of his wee or pooh), it manifests as him lying down or falling over and fitting, it looks like he has cramp all over with stretching out of his neck and odd posture. Usually they only last less than a minute or two - I can tell when he is feeling better as he gets control of his tongue again and tries to start licking as usual LOL. Afterwards he is completely back to normal, no shivers or shakes and he seems happy again (he tries for extra cuddles of course, and gets them :heart:).
I took him to the vet and we had some blood tests run to check the medication levels in his blood - all of the results came back normal, right in the middle of the therapeutic dose. So there is scope for increase in the meds but his liver is palpably enlarged from being on the phenobarbitone for such a long time.
Have any of you come across this sort of thing before, it just seems so different from his pattern of seizures previously - how is the coughing linked to him having a fit?
The only other thing to mention is that he has this fixed and dilated pupil in one eye, it was checked out some months ago and hasn't changed but the vet thought at the time that it was something neural that was causing it, like a growth in his brain near the nerve affecting that eye.
He's otherwise doing great, looking his age a little (10 1/2) and slowing down a fair bit but he is a happy loving wee boy.
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Tristan, it sounds like you're handling this as a very brave boy. Maybe a snuggle from your auntie Sandi will help? Maybe not but snuggles are lovely to receive. :heart:
Cannot help with any information but sending Rays & Hugs.