Festus, honestly I am not sure how the phosphorus treatment for my Golden is going. He had two grand mal seizures at the dog park on a very hot day last June, after running up and down hills after tennis balls. It was a terrifying experience, and we thought a couple of times he had died. He was stiff, thrashing, eyes fixed and glazed, and he hit his head a few times very hard on a park bench. The vets at the emergency hospital told us phenobarbital was the treatment, but that it could cause liver damage and that the dog would be kind of drugged and loopy for the rest of his life. Our Golden was only two at the time, and that sounded just horrible, so we looked around for alternative treatments and found a fully licensed vet who is also a naturopathic vet and a Reike master (flower essences).
I say I don't know how the treatment is going because although he has never had any subsequent seizures, it is possible with any dog that the seizure will be a one-time event. Sometimes vets wait until a second occurrence to treat the problem, but the experience was so horrendous for us that we didn't want to do that.
Did your dog like to lie in the sun or the shade? That is one of the questions the vet asked us to determine which homeopathic remedies and herbs to treat ours with. He likes to lie in the shade, which from the Chinese veterinary viewpoint indicates that his system is running too hot, too fiery, and lying in the shade is an attempt to cool that down. He pants a lot and gets very excited by things the other dogs are more relaxed about. For example, our Shih Tzu loves to lie in the sun and she is also very laid back, just the opposite. So he was just running himself ragged. And the treatment objective is to slow him down. A dog presenting with a different way of tackling life--a different life force so to speak--would be treated with different medications.
Seizure disorders seem to be really common in Goldens and Labs, and the typical onset is at about two or three years, FYI. I would always suggest either having a vet who had seriously studied naturopathic veterinary medicine, or at least consulting with one when your pet has an illness that might be helped by one. All sorts of illnesses like kidney disorders, diabetes and other ones I don't remember at the moment can respond to naturopathic treatment.
Like your dog, mine who has the seizure disorder is extremely kind and good-natured. He wears his heart on his sleeve, so to speak. |
