Does any body's bulldog suffer from head tremors or seizures ?

Our bulldog Amos began to suffer from ediopathic head tremors about avyearvagon. We gotnonna retiming of giving him honey any time he had one as well as put him on a very low dose of phenobarbital . Slowely they faided away over a month , after 4 months we tried to slowly ween him of the phenobarbital but when we dud the tremors returned. So we stayed with the phenobarbital..last week the tremors returned? His glucose levels are normal, his calcium range is normal .. Should we get an MRI? Another medication recommended was kepra? I hate using medication but the constant tremors worry us... Any advice ?

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amos1

They began a year ago..sorry

They began a year ago..

sorry for the sloppy typing in my first post..

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amos1

How old is he?

We had head tremors Until he was 2 ish.  I was told not to give phenobarbital because he could "grow" out of it.  Which he did. There is some information which I thought I gathered from this website, it had a phone number, and a lady that was very helpful..

Kathy Chester Newman and Jessa's picture

Newman has them...

but only once in a while.  Karo syrup always stops them.  He is almost 4.  I've always been told that they are harmless, so I would question the phenobarb.  How often does he have them?

AmyandSophia's picture

I found that a food change solved Sophia's head tremors.

I strongly suggest you try changing his diet and try to get him off the Phenobarbitol. My girl had them while eating grain free Taste of the Wild. She is on Blue Buffalo Lamb and Rice and does awesome.

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Amy and Sophia

frank the tank's picture

Idiopathic Head Tremors

My bulldog started having head tremors about 2 years ago when he was about 14 months old.  It freaked me out!  I read a lot about them and provided they are not actual seizures (foaming at the mouth or other physical triggers) they appear to be harmless.  My vet who specialized in bulldogs told me his French bulldog had them about 2 or 3 times and then never again and so he told me not to worry.

Often times some vets recommend MRI etc and people spend a ton of money with no real results or reason for what is going on and the dog is fine.

Well it has been about 1 1/2 years and he hasn't had one since and he is a very health dog.  We didn't change up anything.  Since the tremors do not hurt the animal there is no money to researching why and there are lots of theories out there.  When my bully wold get a tremor I would run and grab a treat and make him focus on it for about 10 to 15 seconds before giving it to him and this stopped the tremor EVERY TIME within a couple seconds.  I found that simply distracting him and making him focus (and we all know bullys LOVE to focus on food) would stop it. 

Thre is a study going on and you can email shakingbulldog@gmail.com to get some information and to make sure that we are talking about the same type of tremor/head bobbing.

Good luck!

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Andrew Arnold