My dog had spleen surgery, now has seizures. What should I do?

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Seizures are not expected to cause swelling of the neck or abdomen. Seizures can occur due to many reasons that go from a toxicity, metabolic diseases, inflammatory diseases and even tumors. I highly recommend that you have Quinn evaluated by a veterinarian as soon as possible for further assessment and treatment. Diagnostics that will be recommended will include bloodwork and advanced imaging such as an MRI. They would also be able to start her on anti-seizure medications to try to avoid the onset of more seizures. Good luck and have a good day! Hoping for a speedy recovery!

Clotting problems are relatively common following splenic surgery, but it is certainly unusual to see a stroke. Her prognosis really depends on her neurologic status now and what her brain looks like on an MRI (assuming the stroke occurred in her brain). You can ask about referral to a neurologist for an MRI. Otherwise only time can tell, and some brain injuries can take several months before improvement is seen.

I'm happy to hear that Lill's tumor was benign. There are a couple of possibilities going on, but having a splenectomy should not result in urinary incontinence. Sometimes we will see dogs have to urinate more after surgery due to the amount of fluids that we give them during surgery, but this commonly passes after a couple of days. Since Lill is also drinking more water, I would make sure that her bloodwork was normal after surgery (as well as before). If that is the case, then I would have your vet check a urine sample. If surgery was 3 weeks ago and this is continuing, I doubt it will pass on its own, so I would take her to the vet again to investigate the problem. Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

I'm so sorry about your dog. I know this is a very scary time. There are multiple causes of seizures. I'm not sure how old your dog is, but in dogs under 5 years old who are completely normal in between seizure episodes, epilepsy is the primary cause of seizures. In older dogs it could be inflammation, a brain tumor, and infection or problems with the organs (particularly the liver). I always recommend blood work first to look for any problems there. If the blood work is normal, the next step is to evaluate the brain by doing an MRI. If blood work has not been done, I would highly recommend it. If problems are found in the blood work, then you should treat that. If everything is normal in the blood work, I would recommend starting seizure medication. Some dogs will have seizures very infrequently like your dog started out. Those dogs don't usually need medication. But when they become more frequent and are clustering (multiple in a 24 hours period) then I would definitely recommend medication at this point. There are multiple different seizure medications to choose from, so talk to your veterinarian about that. Many times the seizures will be manageable with medications, but it takes consistent medication multiple times per day and blood rechecks for the drug levels. Honestly, some dogs will be very difficult or impossible to control and will continue to have seizures despite being on multiple medications. So to answer your question, yes, there is something you can do to help your pet and based on the number of seizures he is now having, he needs to be put on medication. I hope this helps!

I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your dog. It's possible that he may have had a stroke or blood clot secondary to his heart disease that traveled to his brain. Or, if he was regularly having collapsing episodes due to his heart (syncope), what you saw may have been one of these that was especially severe, as this is a common cause of sudden death in dogs with severe heart problems. If you want to try to get a more definite answer on what the cause of death may have been, you would need to have an autopsy done, called a necropsy in animals. Your veterinarian should be able to let you know where you can have this done, if it's something you want to pursue. Again, I'm very sorry for your loss.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I would need to ask a bunch more questions and would be happy to do a consultation if you’d like but let me give you a few ideas. 1) be sure it’s not heart- Fainting spells can look a lot like seizures. Consider a cardiology consult to make sure it’s not that. They’ll do an EKG and ultrasound of the heart to make sure nothing is amiss. 2) weird fungal diseases- I’m from Arizona, land of valley fever - a fungal disease that can - and often does- cause seizures. Other fungi like Blastomycosis and Histoplasmosis can do similar things. If Bella has traveled out of Texas- even for just a day or two- these are considerations. 3) Bella is simply an atypical epileptic and needs more/different medication. Just like in people, it can sometimes take some time to find the right combination of drugs to get the seizures controlled. 4) weird drug interactions- double check especially about any anti-anxiety or behavior modification medications and pain medications. 5) hypothyroidism, tick fever, other weird stuff. If you’ve done an MRI, you may have already consulted with a neurologist. If not? That would be the next step along with the cardiologist visit. Best of luck to you and Bella!

Causes of seizure can be divided in intracranial and extracranial. Neurological examination, complete blood test, MRI scan and CSF analysis are usually needed to define exactly the underlying cause of it.