It can be a very worrying time if your older dog has started to have seizures. While it is tempting to pass them off as normal “idiopathic” epilepsy, the reality is that, unless your dog has had seizures when they were younger, it is highly unlikely that this diagnosis is correct.

There is likely to be another underlying seizure cause.

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The Causes of Seizures in an Older Dog

• Brain lesions - tumor, stroke
• Infection
• Poisoning
• Organ disease

While a thorough history and simple blood test might be all that is needed to diagnose the seizure cause in the case of poisoning, kidney failure, or liver disease for example, in other cases reaching a diagnosis can be very challenging and referral to a neurologist may be required in these more complex cases if funds allow and a diagnosis is not otherwise forthcoming.

Disease Progression vs Drug Side Effects

While it is easy to blame a drug if your dog develops new symptoms relatively soon after starting treatment, side effects are not always to blame. In fact, they are often a result of progression of the underlying disease process - especially in the case of old dog seizures.

Unfortunately, seizures in older dogs can be more challenging to treat. If there is underlying organ disease then very often seizures only develop late in the course of the disease, making successful management harder.

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