He's had a couple more episodes and I got them on video, which we sent up to the neurologist at Purdue.
He said what he saw on the video is without question seizure activity. The question remains as to what is causing them, but he has a theory. Based on the other symptoms of weight loss, high BP and the digestion problems he has always had, they think it is his liver. They are doing a bial acid test on Tuesday. I didn't really know what that meant so here's what I found:
"The Bile Acid Test is one that measures how the liver functions and performs (as opposed to an enzyme level, that can indicate degree of inflammation or damage).
The dog is fasted, blood is drawn, then 2 hours later, the dog is fed a fatty meal and the blood is drawn again. The blood tests measure pre- and post- meal levels of bile acids, the acids stored by the gall bladder and secreted by the liver.
When animals (humans included) eat and need the bile along with other digestive elements secreted by the pancreas, the gall bladder, a bile storage unit, contracts to release bile into the small intestine as needed for digestion. From there, the bile acids do their work and are then absorbed by the intestine into the liver (portal) blood and returned back to the liver. This is called Enterohepatic Circulation.
Comparing the two blood levels (pre and post meal) allows the veterinarian to see how well the liver, bile ducts, and blood flow to the liver are functioning. Bile acids are removed from liver (portal) blood by the liver cells (hepatocytes). If the liver cells are not functioning well, the bile acids remain in circulation and enter the body (systemic) blood supply where they are measured by this test.
So... if post-meal (or even in some cases, fasting) blood levels of bile acids are high, this means that the liver isn't doing its job of removing the bile acids from the blood as it should."
One of the symptoms of this is Hepatic encephalopathy, or severe neurological signs, behavioral changes, seizures, aimless pacing or circling, head pressing.
Now the unfortunate news......by the time the dog is showing symptoms, the liver damage is usually so severe that it is too late. But his liver enzymes were still pretty good in his last bloodwork, so I'm hopeful.
He said what he saw on the video is without question seizure activity. The question remains as to what is causing them, but he has a theory. Based on the other symptoms of weight loss, high BP and the digestion problems he has always had, they think it is his liver. They are doing a bial acid test on Tuesday. I didn't really know what that meant so here's what I found:
"The Bile Acid Test is one that measures how the liver functions and performs (as opposed to an enzyme level, that can indicate degree of inflammation or damage).
The dog is fasted, blood is drawn, then 2 hours later, the dog is fed a fatty meal and the blood is drawn again. The blood tests measure pre- and post- meal levels of bile acids, the acids stored by the gall bladder and secreted by the liver.
When animals (humans included) eat and need the bile along with other digestive elements secreted by the pancreas, the gall bladder, a bile storage unit, contracts to release bile into the small intestine as needed for digestion. From there, the bile acids do their work and are then absorbed by the intestine into the liver (portal) blood and returned back to the liver. This is called Enterohepatic Circulation.
Comparing the two blood levels (pre and post meal) allows the veterinarian to see how well the liver, bile ducts, and blood flow to the liver are functioning. Bile acids are removed from liver (portal) blood by the liver cells (hepatocytes). If the liver cells are not functioning well, the bile acids remain in circulation and enter the body (systemic) blood supply where they are measured by this test.
So... if post-meal (or even in some cases, fasting) blood levels of bile acids are high, this means that the liver isn't doing its job of removing the bile acids from the blood as it should."
One of the symptoms of this is Hepatic encephalopathy, or severe neurological signs, behavioral changes, seizures, aimless pacing or circling, head pressing.
Now the unfortunate news......by the time the dog is showing symptoms, the liver damage is usually so severe that it is too late. But his liver enzymes were still pretty good in his last bloodwork, so I'm hopeful.
