Some Thoughts on Cooper...

So my mom pointed out something when I was talking to her briefly last night. She mentioned that she read the blog and noticed that I pointed out that Cooper generally only has his seizures when he's gotten pretty warm. She is a bit more knowledgeable about seizures than I am because she was dealing with it when my sister was young and I wouldn't have understood these types of things.

But she mentioned that there is a type of seizure that can be caused not necessarily by getting too hot, but by the body temperature changing too rapidly. From what I can tell, if the body gets too cold to quickly OR too hot too quickly, it can cause one of these types of seizures.

They are called "febrile seizures" and from what I can tell they aren't the same as a normal epileptic seizure. They aren't necessarily something that comes from the nervous system, and really there seems to be a general aura of mystery around them, as they come and go in some people and start later in life for others and go away later in life for others. I found a site that said that animals could suffer from these seizures just like people, so I'm now wondering if it's possible that this is what's happening to Cooper.

The information that I found about them says that the onset of them matches Cooper's seizures almost perfectly. They start with the body convulsing, last less than 15 minutes, and shortly after it's over the body goes back to normal completely and the animal or person seems once again 100% healthy. That's exactly what happens to Cooper. His body goes into convulsions and it lasts a few minutes, then after he comes out of it, other than being tired from flexing his muscles so much, he's a happy normal coon dog again, wanting treats and pets.


Here is a generalization of the symptoms of a febrile seizure in an infant:
"The seizure begins with the sudden sustained contraction of muscles on both sides of a child's body -- usually the muscles of the face, the trunk, the arms and the legs. Often a haunting, involuntary cry or moan emerges from the child, from the force of the muscle contraction. The contraction continues for seemingly endless seconds, or tens of seconds. The child will fall, if standing, and may pass urine. He may vomit. He may bite his tongue. The child will not be breathing, and may begin to turn blue. Finally, the sustained contraction is broken by repeated brief moments of relaxation -- the child's body begins to jerk rhythmically."




Replace the word "child" in all of this with "dog" and you have an exact description of what happens to Cooper.

There are a few things that lead me to believe that this might be in fact what is happening to him...the description fits, and the times that I remember it happening have all been when Cooper has a sudden change in body temperature by going from one condition to another. One time he had been in the back yard in 90 degree weather and sun for about 15 minutes...he had water, but I don't know if he was drinking it. Upon coming back into the house, which I had the air conditioning set at about 68, he had the seizure several minutes later. The second time I really remember it, he was in his crate in the basement where it's normally about 65 degrees or so. He came running upstairs and I had been cooking dinner on several burners on the stove and in the oven. I would have to venture a guess that it had to be about 82 or 83 degrees in the kitchen. He had the seizure a few moments after coming upstairs. This last time, he had once again been in his crate in the basement, but it's freezing outside and it's probably only about 58 or so in the basement. He came upstairs and immediately lay down in front of a heat register that was spewing out really hot air because we had gotten home from work and turned the heat up. He had the seizure a few minutes after laying in front of the heat.

The good news is, these seizures are "normal" and very rarely cause any real damage to the body or brain. The bad news is, there's no real way to treat it, and definitely no way to test for it. Like I've said several other times, I think my best course of action for right now is to just make sure that I keep an eye on him and note anything out of the ordinary that happens. But finding out about these febrile seizures has made me feel a little bit better about his condition...because maybe that's all that they are!!!

Here is a generalization of the symptoms of a febrile seizure in an infant:
"The seizure begins with the sudden sustained contraction of muscles on both sides of a child's body -- usually the muscles of the face, the trunk, the arms and the legs. Often a haunting, involuntary cry or moan emerges from the child, from the force of the muscle contraction. The contraction continues for seemingly endless seconds, or tens of seconds. The child will fall, if standing, and may pass urine. He may vomit. He may bite his tongue. The child will not be breathing, and may begin to turn blue. Finally, the sustained contraction is broken by repeated brief moments of relaxation -- the child's body begins to jerk rhythmically."