Giant Dogs With Epilepsy

CBD is what I have seen by far the most success for getting Henry’s and Howie’s seizures under control. If I have ever talked with you about CBD then you know that my favorite CBD product is called Calm Seas. Currently they make a 3,000mg bottle and a 6,000mg bottle.

Before I found Calm Seas CBD I used a couple other CBD products where I did not see results. Some of this was my own fault. I was mixing the CBD in with their food. This is not great because it can take much longer to get into the dog’s system because it now has to go through the digestive tract. Also, it may lower the efficiency of the CBD when it has to travel through the digestive tract. For the best result it is recommended applying the CBD directly into the dog’s mouth. Also, give CBD 30 minutes away from food. If your dog is taking Phenobarbital I would separate the CBD dosing by two hours.  

Another mistake I made is I was not using anywhere close to a high enough dosage. This can be tricky because a lot of CBD I looked at did not tell me how many mgs were in one full dropper. This makes it very hard to determine dosing. Originally it was recommended to me to try 10mgs of CBD a day. I now understand why this dosing was recommended to me. There was a clinical trial done in Colorado for dogs with epilepsy. They saw great success with using CBD for seizure reduction by giving 5mgs of CBD twice a day. The main problem with this study and why a lot of vets don’t take it seriously is because it was a very small group of dogs. There were less than twenty dogs total in the study. Needless to say 10mgs of CBD did nothing for my dogs. 

Finding the correct CBD dose for your dog is by far the hardest part. There is no one size fit all for dogs with seizures. It can be a lot of trial and error. CBD looks for deficiencies in the dog’s endocannabinoid system and every dog’s endocannabinoid system is different which is where a lot of the frustration comes in. This also can make it hard for the vets because they can’t easily provide one dose for all their dog patients with seizures.  

Personally I haven’t seen any dosing less than 50mgs be effective for dogs with seizures. This is just in my personal experience and obviously based on the clinical trial that was done they saw results in much smaller doses. I typically suggest someone start at 50mgs and if your dog has any breakthrough seizures increase the daily dosage by 25mgs. Dogs can’t overdose on CBD. The word overdose means to take a toxic amount amount of a medication or drug. There have been several studies where they tried to get dogs to overdose on CBD by giving them incredibly large amounts of cbd. The only negative side effect they had was diarrhea. CBD does not contain any toxic properties. If a dog is showing symptoms of diarrhea it is most likely due to the carrier oil in the CBD tincture rather than the CBD itself. You can always start with a smaller dose of that makes you more comfortable and work your dog up until you see an improvement..

I would just keep increasing the dose by 25mgs until your dog stops having seizures. Now at some point if this becomes not cost effective for you. That is something that has to be considered. If you are giving the dog 500mgs a day and that isn’t something you can afford then of course you have to consider what makes sense for your situation? Maybe you are only able to afford to do 200mgs a day, your dog is going longer between seizures, and the seizures are less intense. That might be what makes sense for your specific situation and at least you are seeing an improvement.   

Henry takes 100mgs a day and Howie takes 200mgs a day of CBD. I dose CBD three times a day every 8 hours. I want it to be in their system at all times. Again, this is not possible for everyone and if you can only dose twice a day that is better than nothing and you should still have success. Since I go through such a large amount of CBD I appreciate that Calm Seas makes a 6,000mg bottle. Something that did not make sense to me when using other companies is they typically only sell 500mg and 1,500mg bottles of CBD which is useless to me. I would be purchasing it every other day and again that is not cost effective. 

Common issues I hear about people using CBD are they are not using a high enough dose of CBD or they are buying CBD from Amazon. If you are buying CBD off Amazon who knows what could actually be in that product. I would recommend finding a CBD product that is full spectrum and uses MCT as the carrier oil. 

Some companies add essential oils to their CBD products or they use a carrier oil that is very smelly. Henry is very sensitive to scents. He absolutely hates anything that has a strong odor and has a mental breakdown if he comes in contact with anything scented. 

CBD suppositories have been unbelievable for emergency cluster situations. I have an emergency protocol from the neurolgist of how many extra doses of Phenobarbital, Keppra, Pregabalin I can give as well as how much Valium to use for these situations. Unfortunately we have never had much success with this protocol. It has always taken at least 2 hours for these meds to all kick in. Howie in particular is very difficult to get any extra meds into his mouth because he clamps his jaw completely shut and then just goes into back to back seizures so Valium was usually our only option for him. In most cases the emergency protocol kept us out of the emergency but not always. Each emergency room visit is incredibly expensive because they always want your dog to stay overnight for observation and it can be very stressful for your dog. My dogs never want to stay overnight which is why I had an agreement with the neurologist that unless the dog had more than six seizures in 24 hours I would not bring them in to see them. Henry would have severe anxiety about being left overnight and would just make trying to stop the seizures worse. 

I decided to start trying CBD for emergency cluster situations. I originally was putting it directly on the dog’s gums. However, with all the drool that they have when they are having back to back seizures it became very hard to tell how much was actually getting in the system vs what was just being drooled out. I decided that I would try making my own CBD suppositories for the dogs. I bought a metal suppository mold off of Amazon and used CocoTherapy Coconut Oil to create the suppositories. I store them in individual salad dressing containers in the freezer.

 It takes about 20-30 minutes for the suppositories to kick in. I determined how many mgs was needed for emergency clusters in our case by how much I thought was staying in their mouth when I was giving it to them on their gums for the clusters. For us I find that 400mgs of CBD suppositories stops the clusters. Each suppository I make is 200mgs so they get a total of two 200mg CBD suppositories for emergency clusters.   

If you are interested in ordering Calm Seas CBD send them a message through Facebook. They can ship their product anywhere in the U.S. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090457813873

CBD Suppository Instructions

• 0.5ml of just plain coconut oil, put in mold and put in fridge to set. 
• Melt coconut oil and put 1.5ml in dish
• Mix 1ml of 6,000 cbd oil with the 1.5ml coconut oil 
• Put 2.5ml of cbd/coconut oil mixture into mold then put into freezer to set 
• Makes one 200mg cbd suppository 

CBD Suppository Supplies from Amazon

Suppository Mold-3mL

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MosJos Condiment Containers with Screw Lids (4-Piece) 

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4 Pack, 1 mL Glass Eye Dropper with Measurement – Long & Short, Bent & Straight Tip Calibrated Glass Medicine Droppers