We have an epileptic dog who is having seizures every 7-10 days, which cannot be controlled by meds.
we have six Wyle cams all over the house and outside to monitor her.
I just ordered two v3 for better sensitivity at night
I am a heavy sleeper and usually do not wake up when she is having a seizure. My wife does. But she is going out of town… so I need to somehow get alerted to a seizure
I thought of putting her collar on her and attaching a bell, but my wife believes that a collar is dangerous during a seizure, so she is not wearing a collar while she is in the house.
I’d love a new specialized detection mode with the ability to detect and be alerted to a seizure which means detecting rapid small movements in the same general area (i.e. not something moving across the field of view) and only when accompanied by the sounds of thrashing about and clanging teeth.
I do not want to detect actual movements across the field of view for example when she gets up to drink or outside to pee or just changes position, which anyway will not be accompanied by noise (other than doggie door flopping but I should be able to exclude the door area from detection), I also do not want to detect just sounds such as barking, either our dogs, neighbors dogs, or coyotes…
My dog has epilepsy as well! It’s a hard thing to watch. But, I can say he wears a harness 24/7 (until bathtime) and they do not impact his ability to breathe if he has a seizure while we are away for short periods.
On a side note, my vet recommended a new dog food that’s been clinically shown to reduce seizure severity and frequency. Purina Neurocare. So far my dog hunter has had good results, small results, but it was noticeable in the severity/length of seizure being reduced. He is also on medication, but medication hasn’t really shown any improvement over his lifetime in frequency.
I’m in the same boat. Started having seizures twice a month while still a puppy. One time he kicked the wall so hard, one of the claws stuck out on the other side of the paw. The claw had to be removed.
I was told that the commonly-prescribed medication impairs the kidneys. We opted for CBD (not hemp oil) instead. The seizures became less frequent; it took months between occurrences.
And now even the trashing is gone. All that’s left is shortness of breath and heart palpitations.
But just the same, I keep a few V3’s around the house so can rush back home if I see him having one.
Thanks for the input, my wife is taking care of her. tried several doctors, and several meds. nothing seemed to help. but I do not believe that she tried CBD. I’ll mention it to her. thanks again. -avi
finally had the time to install the second v3 overlooking the doggie bed area,
my wife got our epileptic dog on the bed and did a good belly rub without moving herself so that only the dog’s legs moved
The camera detected it just fine! (I set the motion detection sensitivity to high)
Therefore it seems that it might be very easy to add a custom seizure detection mode.
issue an alert only when all the following conditions are met:
1- detect a non-smooth medium to high frequency movements i.e. when the center of one or more detection rectangle moves in small deltas and in a small area, with a user settable ranges for the delta (small/med/large), size of area of movement (small/med/large), and frequency range (low/med/high). i.e. do not detect a smooth motion across the field of view or when the center of the detection rectangle position delta increases in one direction.
2- one or more detection rectangle lasts more than x seconds (for example only if the motion is detected for more than 4 or 5 seconds)
3- the sound level exceeds a user settable threshold
there might be false alerts, such as scratching, but that’s acceptable.
but should eliminate an alert if the dog just shifts positions which is a fairly quick and smooth motion in one general direction and without much sound, or if the dog gets up (or another one of the dogs gets up) and moves across the field of view (which is also fairly quick and smooth and without much sound)
I am also trying to set up motion detection alerts only when my dog is having a seizure. Were you able to effectively set up this alert? If so, do you mind walking me through how? I have three v3 cameras and can’t figure out how to create an alert with the specificity you mentioned.
both of us are still allowed to work from home so we make sure that one of us is at home at any given time day or night so that she is never alone at home
meds are up to the point where they will probably mess up kidneys and/or liver. yet we still get a seizure once every 10-14 days, sometimes clusters.
Avi, have you tried Purina Neurocare? Our epileptic beagle was helped greatly by this. It’s a food specially formulated for dogs with epilepsy. His seizure activity was greatly reduced. He was on levitarecetam (might be spelled incorrectly) prescription in addition. Low dose.
He would have multiple seizures a week, grand Mal seizures lasting 5 minutes sometimes more, and cluster seizures for almost an hour. The vets said when we first adopted him he wouldn’t live to see 10 years old. Somehow, he made it to 12 despite his seizures and that year we switched vets and the new vet prescribed the new dog food and switched his meds. The difference was incredible. His seizures lasted under 2 minutes (typically under a minute), and once every week or two.
He crossed the rainbow bridge last September at 15 years young, not due to age or seizures, but an aggressive oral cancer unrelated to his epilepsy.
If you haven’t tried this food, it’s worth a shot. It may or may not help your pup, but if you’re like me, you’d try anything to help them feel their best. Best of luck!
This is Hunter, a year before he crossed the rainbow bridge, all dressed up for our wedding.
we still feed her raw food as we always did (frozen raw rabbit, turkey, tripe, organ blend, plus freshly cooked veggies, and supplements)
we tried everything, including CBD oil, holistic/acupuncture, various supplements, etc. we have been to multiple specialist vets. yet nothing helped to completely control the seizures (used to be once or twice a month, but are now at about once a week or two, under two minutes, but on fairly large dose of meds as she built resistance to the lower doses)
our dog never fully responded to medications, we tried so many meds and combos. the best we found so far is a combo of KBr (potassium bromide) and Phenobarbital
we use Keppra (Levetiracetam) every other seizure to prevent clusters (and I believe a large doze of Phenobarbital the other) alternating in an attempt to prevent loss of efficacy (i.e. prevent resistance to the drugs)
I understand completely about trying all the things. I did so much research over the years about epilepsy and treatments. We tried the cbd and supplements, different meds, grain free food, etc. The grain free diet helped a little, but the Purina Neurocare was like a night and day difference. It didn’t stop the seizures, but definitely lessended the severity, length, and frequency.
