My dog has epilepsy.

[Miss Vicky]

Originally Posted by Steviefan49

...come to find out when he was dying on us, that he had a huge grapefruit sized tumor in his liver.. still can't believe, as much as we pay the vets.. that they couldn't find this!

While those in the veterinary field make every effort to properly diagnose people's pets, do keep in mind that there is a limit to what medicine can do. Most veterinarians run small, general practices and lack the funds, training, and certification to have and use an MRI machine. Many don't even have ultrasound equipment. For more sophisticated diagnostics such as these, you'd need to be referred either to a specialist or to a University. As for your comment about how much you pay veterinarians, I suspect that you haven't the slightest idea what it costs to run a veterinary practice.

Simple blood tests can often rule out many cancers as the cancer cells will cause certain blood values to come out of normal range. If these values were tested and came back normal, there may not have been any reason to suspect cancer. Epilepsy in people is diagnosed with a series of invasive, and often painful procedures (such as spinal taps) that are either not available to veterinary medicine or are too costly for the average pet owner to afford. In any case, true epilepsy is probably more common in dogs than are tumors of the liver and there may well have been more reason to suspect epliepsy than any other cause of the seizure activity. It should also be noted, that sometimes veterinarians will prescribe certain medications both to treat the suspected cause and to help rule out certain other possibilities. If the phenobarbital controls the seizures, than it's most likely epilepsy. If it doesn't, it's time to search for another cause.

Epileptic dogs, like epileptic people, can live normal lives with the right treatment. Phenobarbital is the most often used medication and is usually effective (and is reasonably inexpensive). However, it is imperative that you have your dogs blood levels checked AT LEAST once every six months to ensure that the phenobarbital is at the proper dosage for your dog. Some dogs, however, have more severe cases and may need supplementation with potassium bromide (in addition to the phenobarbital).