Sunday, March 20, 2011

SEIZURE!

68 days…. Not better than the record 100 days but still much better  than the typical 14 days between them she has experienced most of her 4 year life.  Katie had one this morning about 10am.DSC00888

I really hate it for her when they happen but thankfully the meds are working and the seizures that she does have are wayyyy  less intense and last only a few minutes instead of hours.

None of us slept particularly well overnight. I usually blame on a full moon because that is typically when I don’t sleep too soundly.

Looking back, Katie has had a few small cues that she might have been working up to a seizure. Little things, like a sudden involuntary flash-kick of a hind leg while she is resting or some pacing for no apparent reason.

She is fine, though.  it lasted about 4 minutes and then she was off walking it off. She seems to have discovered that walking around helps clear it out of her system and I can believe that. The normal Cross-crawl patterning that takes place in the nervous system when walking on 4 legs, is a powerful normalizer for the whole neurological system. 

Therapeutically, cross-crawl simulation, even while lying down, is used to stabilize unbalanced muscle tone and works for all 3 axis of the body (front/back, side/side, top/bottom).

I have not seen anything specific about its use in humans in seizure recovery but from what I have seen in Katie, it definitely shortens the number of bouts of rigor that she typically has (3 –6 per seizure to just 1 or two). It also seems to bring the slobbering and glassy eyed stark staring to an end much more quickly than if she does not walk.

Back when she was having them several times a month, I found that even if I carried her outside on a leash and helped support her while she tried to walk, she would return to normal much more quickly. You could just watch how her walking around went from that of a drunken sailor to a normal dog in a matter of minutes while she was walking, even just doing figure 8’s.

Although this day started off with a few minutes of angst it has turned out nicely.  Though a little cooler in the 50s today, it was still very nice to take a few walks and enjoy the filtered sunlight through the spring trees and a few clouds.

Maybe tonight will be a sound night of sleep for everyone.  Merrily is driving on the road tomorrow and is nailing the shifting so I can hardly wait unti we can climb into Clifford and share the drive to wherever we want.

ttfn

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