Seizures and Acid Bile
 

Hi Everyone
I am new here and came across this site while doing some research in a hurry. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with or thoughts on what's being going on with our 6 year old Yorkshire Terrier Perry.
About a year ago he has a small seizure, we rushed him to the vets and it passed quickly. It was in slug season so he was given some medicine just encase he had eaten one and it completely dissipated.
About 6 months later he had another which again cleared up by itself and the vet said she was not overly concerned as it didnt last long and he was not having them frequent enough to go onto medication.
A few weeks ago he went into a severe seizure and we rushed him to the vets where he spent several hours on a drip and having vallium. It took him over two hours to come out of the seizure. This concerned us and the vet terribly so she ordered a bile acid test and put him on some anti-seizure medication and low protein food. The next day he had another small seizure which was contained and lasted not 20 mins. The results of his test came back as high at 25 but were inconclusive from the lab as he had been sick after the food. We gave it a week, he had another seizure, and another bile test. This time results are 33.
His seizures are not standard for epilepsy as they are very different, sometimes long seizures with stiffness and shaking, other times he falls all over the place. He has also taken to urinating in the bathroom which is right next to the back door where he goes out and the vet is concerned neurological.
We are being sent now for a ultrasound scan to check for liver shunts........has anyone else had any experience with this and if so were there operations involved, was it a shunt?
Sorry to ramble, we are all very worried!!

First of all welcome to YT. I am just so sad that it is under these conditions!

Your Perry sounds quite ill. I know that you live in England, and I am not sure if you have vet teaching hospitals easily available to you, but that is where I would advise a Canadian to go for diagnostic testing.

In a moment or two, I will do some searches on here, as we have many good informative threads on Liver Shunt.

First the results of your BATS tests, usually (but certainly not always) the after food number is a whole lot higher than 33 or 25. Now having said different labs may work with a different set of result(s) guidelines by small margin or two. Those results might be more indicative of an MVD. Microvalvular Dysplasia. That is still a liver condition.

Just so that you know ultrasound is often times not that accurate in determining an extrahepatic shunt, scintography is usually preferred. But you are already in the process of having one done. For interest and information sake, I would ask about the experience of the person doing the ultrasound.

Usually symptoms begin to show after eating as the liver has problems in de-toxifying the food etc. And usually they start fairly mildly, but if the condition is left un-treated the symptoms usually worsen over time.

Let me close now and see if I can find you some more informative threads on Liver Shunt.

Let us know how today goes.

Here is a link to a Yahoo group that has lots of information on LS and MVD.

Yahoo Groups

I think you should take the dog to a internal medicine specialist who is a member of the ACVIM. If there is no medical cause found for the seizures, then a neurologist would be a next step.

Sorry, I didn't notice you were in the UK so that means it wouldn't be the ACVIM.

Please let us know what you find out. My little guy has been having some odd kind of neurological issues that the neurologist hasn't been able to figure out, so I am always on the hunt for an answer. I've always wondered if there was a link between his liver and his seizure episodes...but thus far, the vet says no....

You said your vet mentioned a neurological issue. Chiari is a neurological issue in dogs & unfortunately due to bad breeding is being seen more & more in Yorkies & Chiari most often throws off liver enzymes.