pets and epilepsy - Epilepsy Message Board

radasjewel · 08-25-2003, 12:50 AM

I am sure we can all say that sometime or another we have gotten warnings or aurors that a major siezure is on its way. I know I have. But has anyone found that the house hold pet can sense if you are going to have a siezure as well or if they know something is wrong?
My dog seems to know when I am about to have one or when I am having one. He gets very clingy to me and wont leave my side at all and apparently it was my dog that got me help last time I was at home on my own and had a major siezure. I collapsed in a heap with a grand mal near the stove and my neibour came next door to find out why my dog was howling, running round in circles and pawing madly at the back door. She said that if it had not been for his behaviour she would not have come next door.
Is there anyone else out there who has noticed if their pets have sensed something is wrong or about to happen? I am not too sure but I think I have heard on the grapevine too of dogs being trained to sense siezure acticity and alert their owners. Has anyone else heard of this?
Lori

ritamymom · 08-25-2003, 02:47 AM

Hi Lori

YES!! I have two dogs and they are both very intuned to how I am feeling. One of them does not leave me at all when she senses a problem coming on. I will go in the bathroom and come out and she will be right outside, I will go down stairs and she follows. It is amazing! When I am having auras they BOTH are very intuned to it. If I start to do something I should not be doing while having auras they both will bark, and they do not bark otherwise!
After a tonic clonic seizure they stay right with me in bed until I am feeling better. Although I think they can sense when I am going to have a tonic clonic, they act the same as when I am having auras so I don't know in advance of those (except for my usual "one minute notice").
Yes, you are right about "seizure dogs". They are like seeing eye dogs; trained for the job.

Pets are great friends and don't talk back! I love them both so much and are great company while I am alone during the day for sure!!

Good luck Lori!!

R

Krazykcio · 08-25-2003, 09:56 PM

Hi,
About three weeks ago I had a seizure while my husband and I were sitting on the beach with our adopted, retired greyhound. Later, my husband told me that the greyhound, Mack, "is no Lassie". Apparently while I was flopping around

, the dog laid on the ground facing away from me! He was more interested in watching the children that were playing nearby.

All kidding aside, my primary physician recently asked me if I knew about seizure dogs. I didn't, but checked on them. They sound fascinating. Because I get a five minute warning I don't think I need one, but it would be wonderful, especially for parents of "E" kids, to have a warning system.

I think that we "E"ers are coming out of the closets, where epileptics were often kept. The more questions we ask, and the more we demand that research be done, the more we will be offered such assistance as these dogs. Let's all keep pushing, eh?!? Be well, Kathy

LisaGuthrie · 08-26-2003, 10:43 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm an E parent. We have tossed around the idea of getting a seizure dog for Jake (now 20 mths). It's a very long process. There is often a waiting list of 3 years for these dogs.

I plan to visit the school that Jake will attend and see if he would be allowed to have his dog in the class room. From everything I've read the key is having close contact with each other. I don't want to do all this work and then not be allowed to have them together during the day. If that's the case then we may get our own dog and try and trian it our selves.

The men (my oldest son and Jake's Daddy) in our home don't think it's a good idea for him to take a dog to school even if it's allowed. They say that he will be singled out by other kids because he's different. My thinking is that I would rather him be singled out for having a cool dog with him, rather then being the kid who turns blue and twitches on the floor in class. I would rather him have a warning, get up and go to the nurses station away from the class before he checks out.

He's still to small to let us know if he can feel the auras, we can normally tell early in the day when they are going to happen. Some times we are right and he'll have full CPs with generalization to TCs and other days only small blips or disconnects. I think that he's having SPs or absent szs but not sure. So it would be so much better for us as a family...

Am I making it to simple? What are your thoughts? And I'm with Kathy, it's time that everyone know about E. We do not hide it from our friends, family, co-workers or strangers, we take him out with us to dinner, the beach, parks, he is better behaved then most "normal" kids we know... He has had seizures while in public, we deal with it, and life goes on

Everyone has some type of abnormal neuro behavior, some just more then others.

Again let me know what you think about having a dog in the classroom. Is it too different then having a seeing eye dog???

Thanks - hugs all round

Lisa and Jake

[This message has been edited by LisaGuthrie (edited 08-26-2003).]

violarose2 · 08-26-2003, 08:00 PM

my dog- hmm, she stays w/ me always. lol i dont know why she likes me so much, she has seizures too. so i cant tell if my dog notices or not. but while i am on the ground she licks my face constantly, totally annoying to me, lol espicially since i am not a dog lover and dont like dog licks, lol!!!! cant they have a E cat???