Gio's a Cluster Pup Now

It appears as if our luck has run out. Prior to now, Gio has had some pretty nasty seizures, but they always stopped after one and then we would go for a stretch of time before running into another. But as of this morning, Gio is officially a "Cluster Pup". He was diagnosed with "Idiopathic Epilepsy", which is a silly term in and of itself, in February of 2007. It is idiopathic because we just don't know what is causing the seizures. All of his bloodwork, x-rays, thyroid tests, and ultrasounds have come back clear and we have no conclusive trigger for his seizures. So idiopathic basically means "he has seizures, but we don't know why".

A cluster is when there are multiple seizures within 24 hours. So in addition to the grand mal of yesterday morning, Gio had a focal seizure at midnight last night and another grand mal this morning at about 3:55am.

There are methods to dealing with cluster seizures. Many pups have found success with the Valium protocol. I had some success with the Ice Pack Treatment this morning, as it was able to significantly reduce the recovery post-ictal stage to one hour rather than Gio's normal 3-4 hours. Others have reported that the Ice Pack Treatment can prevent successive seizures in Cluster Pups, or at least lessen the severity of the subsequent seizures.

I will be speaking to my vet this morning about possibly adding Phenobarbital to our medication regime as we are obviously not getting good control with just Potassium Bromide (KBr) anymore. And in the past, increasing Gio's KBr has lead to digestive issues that wreaked havoc on his poor belly for months.