Giant Dogs With Epilepsy

If you have a dog with seizures then I am sure you have ended up in the emergency room a time or two. I know I spent quite a fair amount of time at the ER because my dogs have always had cluster seizures from the very beginning.

When I started working with a neurologist I was given an emergency protocol to use consisting of extra doses of Phenobarbital, Keppra, Pregabalin, and diazepam. Now Henry in particular when having to stay overnight at the vets after being admitted through the ER would apparently get very anxious. He would pace back and forth and could never settle down. This is not ideal for when a dog is trying to recover after having numerous seizures in a row. The neurologist told us to try and not come in unless the dogs had more than six seizures within 24 hours. Unfortunately even with the emergency protocol that we had we still would end up at the ER because the emergency protocol was not stopping the seizures.

Henry and Howie have always had back to back clusters. The seizures only last about a minute but once one seizure ended a few minutes later they would go into another seizure. I would give all the max doses for our emergency protocol and it would take usually about 2 hours for the extra meds to kick in so it became a matter of how many seizures would they have within two hours and then would the seizures actually stop after that. If they didn’t stop we would end up in the ER. Howie was a real problem trying to give extra doses of meds to. He would lock his jaw and I couldn’t shove anything down his throat. Also, he would usually go into another seizure just as his jaw would come unclamped which becomes dangerous for hands and fingers.

What eventually was the turning point for me was when Henry had so many seizures the medications were not doing anything and he was completely unresponsive to me. I honestly thought that was the end and he wasn’t going to make it. EMTs actually put him on a stretcher and helped me get him in my car to take to the ER. The vets were able to get him stabilized and he stayed overnight again at the ER. Of course every time you go to the ER is a very expensive trip especially if the dog has to stay overnight which they pretty much always want to do with dogs with seizures. I decided I had to do something because obviously our emergency protocol was not working. I needed to get something to get in the dogs system quicker than the two hours and for something to actually work at stopping the seizures.

This is when I started doing a lot of experimenting with using CBD as an emergency clusters buster as well as using CBD in our daily routine. I have a post about CBD that I will link below on how to properly use CBD and how to try and figure out the correct dose. When I first started using it for cluster buster situations I was putting the oil directly on the dogs gums. I had no idea how much was needed to try and stop the seizures. I found that this became quite difficult because there was so much drool everywhere from the seizures. I had no idea how much CBD was actually getting in their system and how much they were actually drooling out.

I realized why couldn’t I try and make my own CBD rectal suppositories? I wanted something similar to the diazepam that I used for our emergency protocol. It would get in the system quickly and I could find out really how much CBD I was giving at a time. I bought a mold from Amazon and salad dressing containers to store them individually in the freezer to have on hand. The suppositories are not shelf stable because it is just CBD and coconut oil. I started experimenting with recipes and came up with the one below. I use 2 (200mg) CBD suppositories to stop my dogs clusters. So a total of 400mg for emergency clusters situations. It takes about 25-30 minutes to get in the dogs system. Now this is the dose that works for us. Depending on your dog you could use less or need more. CBD is really a trial and error experiment which is one of the reasons I think vets have a hard time recommending people give it a try. There is no one size fits all approach because the dosing doesn’t have to do with the dog’s weight it is dependent on each dog’s endocannabinoid system.

This has literally been life changing for us. I have not had to go to the ER. I am able to only have to use the CBD to stop the seizures without having to give all the extra doses of medications. This in particular is great for Howie because I no longer have to worry about losing fingers or trying to get his jaw unclamped to shove pills down his throat.

If you have a dog with clusters and your emergency protocol doesn’t work I really recommend giving CBD a try. If you have an emergency protocol that works but you don’t like how doped up your dog is after giving so many extra doses of medication then I also would recommend giving CBD a try. If your emergency protocol from a neurologist works and your happy then that is fantastic and I hope you continue to have great success with it. This is just a possible alternative option to help when owners are not able to stop the seizures with extra doses of medications and to help save some money by staying out of the ER.

I will be writing another post soon about things that should be done after a dog has a seizure like ice packs and getting their blood sugar up.

CBD Suppository Instructions-using Calm Seas CBD 6,000mg bottle

• 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

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