Koda is doing better 💓
I thought I'd make an update since some people who saw my latest posts about him have asked. Koda is pretty much back to his old self, thanks to a medication called carbamazepine. The day after my last post about him, which I'll link below, was the worst. He suffered continuous seizures and became very unwell — it took many seizure-free days before he even started resembling himself again. He was salivating, had poor balance, was extremely anxious, wouldn't eat, not excited about anything, he wouldn't even play catch which is his favorite activity. I thought he'd suffered permanent brain damage when this went on for several days, as he even seemed confused about sounds which he should be familiar with, like the cat using its litterbox, and it really hurt me to see him in that state. All of sudden he started getting better, and I now have my dog back again as I know him, and I couldn't be happier. 💕
We took a lot of bloodtests and gave him an ultra-sound; I love touching his shaven belly now. 🤭
The woman at the hospital asked us what on earth was wrong with our dog, since the vet had requested such an enormous amount of tests lol. They all came back normal, so did the ultrasound results, which means that Koda likely has either epilepsy or a brain tumor. We are not going to give him an MRI to find out if he has a brain tumor since it would be far too stressfull for him to drive back and forth between Novovolynsk and L'viv via public transport many times, and there isn't really anything which anyone can do to cure him if he does have a brain tumor. Given that he's now back to being his old self, and the fact that he only just turned 4 years old, I really doubt that a brain tumor is causing the seizures. He doesn't seem to have any other symptoms pointing towards that either. I think he just has epilepsy.
Plausible explanation as to what happened:
I have a good idea of why he got so bad. We started giving him a different type of medicine than the one we give him now, when he first began to have seizures. He was fine on that for 3 weeks, but then we took him off medication per advice from our vet — I'm sure he wanted to find out if the seizures stopped on their own, since it isn't great for him to be on medication — the seizures began again, and we immedietly started medicating him again. He was seizure-free for another 2 weeks, then one day the apothecary didn't have the correct brand of medicine. They had a different brand which they claimed was the exact same thing, and we didn't really question it since this is often the case. He was fine on that for a short while, then had a seizure. We didn't think much of the first two, because enough time passed in between them that it wasn't really something to worry about, and most dogs will experience less severe seizures from time to time, even when they're medicated. Then the nightmare began, we were dealing with so many seizures that we didn't even bother cleaning up after them, we honestly thought we were going to lose him. I now think that the second medication we gave him was faulty, in despite of claiming that it contained the exact same ingredients and dose. When we switched to carbamazepine it also didn't work, until we gave him a double dose. That's the dose he's been on ever since, and according to what I was able to read on the internet, it's not even high for a dog his size. It seems like medicine against epilepsy either works or doesn't work at all, depending on the dose. I read online that epilepsy can worsen a lot if the dog is taken off medication, and I think that's exactly what happened when we gave him the faulty medicine. I think it was the same as not giving him anything, hence his illness started to spiral out of control.
I feel very hopeful for the future now. 🌻
Link to my previous post about Koda and his illness:
https://similarworlds.com/pets/dogs/my-dog-has-epilepsy/4815530-My-dog-had-3-seizures-today-I-was-going-to-take-a-week-off
We took a lot of bloodtests and gave him an ultra-sound; I love touching his shaven belly now. 🤭
[image/video deleted]
The woman at the hospital asked us what on earth was wrong with our dog, since the vet had requested such an enormous amount of tests lol. They all came back normal, so did the ultrasound results, which means that Koda likely has either epilepsy or a brain tumor. We are not going to give him an MRI to find out if he has a brain tumor since it would be far too stressfull for him to drive back and forth between Novovolynsk and L'viv via public transport many times, and there isn't really anything which anyone can do to cure him if he does have a brain tumor. Given that he's now back to being his old self, and the fact that he only just turned 4 years old, I really doubt that a brain tumor is causing the seizures. He doesn't seem to have any other symptoms pointing towards that either. I think he just has epilepsy.
Plausible explanation as to what happened:
I have a good idea of why he got so bad. We started giving him a different type of medicine than the one we give him now, when he first began to have seizures. He was fine on that for 3 weeks, but then we took him off medication per advice from our vet — I'm sure he wanted to find out if the seizures stopped on their own, since it isn't great for him to be on medication — the seizures began again, and we immedietly started medicating him again. He was seizure-free for another 2 weeks, then one day the apothecary didn't have the correct brand of medicine. They had a different brand which they claimed was the exact same thing, and we didn't really question it since this is often the case. He was fine on that for a short while, then had a seizure. We didn't think much of the first two, because enough time passed in between them that it wasn't really something to worry about, and most dogs will experience less severe seizures from time to time, even when they're medicated. Then the nightmare began, we were dealing with so many seizures that we didn't even bother cleaning up after them, we honestly thought we were going to lose him. I now think that the second medication we gave him was faulty, in despite of claiming that it contained the exact same ingredients and dose. When we switched to carbamazepine it also didn't work, until we gave him a double dose. That's the dose he's been on ever since, and according to what I was able to read on the internet, it's not even high for a dog his size. It seems like medicine against epilepsy either works or doesn't work at all, depending on the dose. I read online that epilepsy can worsen a lot if the dog is taken off medication, and I think that's exactly what happened when we gave him the faulty medicine. I think it was the same as not giving him anything, hence his illness started to spiral out of control.
I feel very hopeful for the future now. 🌻
[image/video deleted]
[image/video deleted]
Link to my previous post about Koda and his illness:
https://similarworlds.com/pets/dogs/my-dog-has-epilepsy/4815530-My-dog-had-3-seizures-today-I-was-going-to-take-a-week-off
