had an awful day yesterday as my 8 month Shiba had an I.V.E.
started with him being sick at dinner time, when I put him in the garden so I could clean it up he looked like he was having a seizure or stroke, holding his head on one side, fell over and then just totally disorientated. phoned the vet and rushed him straight up there convinced that my little man was about to die on me:( my lovely vet did lots of tests while I was there and thankfully ruled out a stroke and thought it was possibly this I.V.E. poor Buddy was still very shaky and his eyes were twitching and he was still holding his head on the side so the vet kept him there for the afternoon to do some blood tests and neuro tests. That was one of the longest afternoons of my life, even the pup was missing him :(
Finally the vet phoned and I went back and he explained about Vestibular system and how they think Buddy had a small bleed somewhere in there which is why his balance was gone. We can't work out what may have caused it, the vet thinks it unlikely it will happen again and Buddy seems to have made a complete recovery and is back to his usual bouncy self this morning :)
I'm just interested if anyone else has experienced this in their dogs or knows any information on it. my vet did write down a brief explaination but you know how it is, when something you don't know about happens to your dog you want to try and find out all you can to try and make sense of it.
he is going back to the vet tomorrow to have a check up to make sure all his nerve responses are normal, I'm sure he'll be fine.

How awful for you :(

So glad that he seems to have recovered but it must have been dreadful at the time

Melody

What an awful shock for you. I had a dog with epilepsy once who suffered with fits, shakes you up, doesn't it?

Thank goodness for you both that he seems like he's back to normal now. :D

well as normal as Buddy ever gets! I felt so sorry for him as he was so confused by it all and there was nothing I could do to make it any easier. I did have to smile though when the vet suggested leaving a light on last night so that if he woke up and was still a bit wobbly or confused he wouldn't bump into anything :)

Julie

I know what it's like, Jake did a similar thing at about 12 weeks and it scared the hell out of me, esp. seeing as I'd spent the whole day cursing him and was convinced that I'd wished it on him :p

Hope you are all ok

Me & the Mock send much love and big hugs xxxxxxxx

I think leaving the light might actually be a good idea Julie. Buddy is holding his head on the side to try to restore his orientation, so if he tries moving about in darkness he could make a bit of a hash of it. :)

I must say I have never heard of Idiopathic Vestibular Syndrome in a dog so young but I am certainly not an expert so that probably doesn't count for much :) I find it a little strange that the vet says they have ruled out a stroke as my understanding was that there is no such thing in dogs but it is a term used for this very condition "to make it easier for the dog owner to understand" :) The other thing about this is it is Idopathic therefore it is unlikely that the vet has any real idea what has caused it it is usually diagnosed by exclusion of other causes i.e. aural haematoma , foreign body in ear, head or neck injury. In older dogs they might try to treat it with vivitonin but as I understand it nobody knows for sure if it helps. There is often an improvement in time anyway and I would have thought the prospects for such a young dog recovering from this would be pretty good.

Oh poor you, I hope he continues to be OK:)

Anita

Poor you, it must have been an awful experience. Great news that he is now back to his usual bouncy self - you must be so relieved.

Lisa

Isabel,
The vet did explain that they couldn't say what had caused it, and as you said ,that it was unusal in such a young dog as it was normally older dogs that got it. he did phone a neuro specialist in Newmarket and described all the symptoms to him and he agreed with the vets opinion. He also said that without doing a brain scan, which would involve going to Newmarket, that they couldn't identify exactly what had gone on. Poor man had to write it all down for me as I knew that hubby would give me the third degree and expect me to know all the answers!:)

If every thing else has been excluded I don't think I would bother with a brain scan which presumably would mean an anaesthetic or sedation. The reason I have boned up on this recently is because my 13yr old appeared to have suffered an incidence a few weeks ago. She seemed perfectly happy (in fact I am ashamed to tell you I could not help laughing seeing her hurtling happily round the garden in a rediculous manner) so I hesitated to take her to the vet where she hates going and...well I was nervous of the posible outcome of a trip to the vet. So I left it for a couple of days, she was soon improving and totally back to normal in about a week or so, from the speed of her recovering I doubt it was IVS but there you go who knows :)

Julie, you have my sympathy. One of our old ladies has had two episodes of IVE, and the first and worse one scared the life out of me - and her! Thankfully, like Buddy, she made a complete and very rapid recovery. Given that Buddy is so young, there any possibility that attack was a genuinely peripheral one due to some middle or inner ear problem? The only other thought is that my vet gave an injection of steroid on each occassion. He admiited that the evidence wasn't very clear, but said that there is some indication that steroids help if given soon after the episode begins.

Glad Buddy is ok, have heard of dogs having these episiodes and have ALL made excellent recoveries, am sure Buddy will be no different.
Dawn.

Do you think mine could have been an IVE then Sharon, I did consider an ear infection but there were no outward signs, no temp and I felt that usually led to head shaking or rubbing. I am not sorry I did not take her to the vet though from the speed she improved I really can't see any treatment would have improved the situation. She seemed so unbothered by it too which is more that can be said for a trip to the vet for her :) One thing I have not been able to find out so far is the likelyhood of a recurrance.

Hi Isabel, I'm no expert, only like you having had it happen boned up. My dog was also 13 when it happened. She didn't have any nausea or vomiting, and there was no nystagmus. As I understand it nystagmus is usual in central IVE, but often absent in peripheral, and if the nystagmus is vertical the prognosis is worse than if it is horizontal. Both times she was snoozing quietly in her bed, but when she went to get up her balance was completely gone and she was reeling around like a drunk and clearly very scared by what was happening. According to my vet steroid is only of use if given very early after onset. The first time we were at the vet within 20 minutes, because when it began the surgery was almost over. The second time she also got the steroid at onset, because I had it in the house. Both times her recovery began in a very short time anyway - she had improved quite a bit by the time we got her to the vet on the first occassion - and was complete after 12 hours of TLC in a well lit room. She had no residual signs, although I undertand that resisual head tilt is common, and residual nystagmus a bit less so. The vet did have a good look at her ears, and found nothing, but then inner ear problems usually show nothing, and wouldn't cause any irritation or pain, so the dog would not be pawing at it's ears. As often as not they aren't caused by infection, so you wouldn't expect a raised temp. either. Common things are commonest, and again according to my vet, central IVE is commoner that periperal IVE, so I imagine that's what she had. He also said that recurent attacks often happen, as it did with our old lady. That said, she had the two attacks close together, and has been fine since. I just wondered about Buddy because he is so young. The blood supply to a dog's brain is different to the blood supply to a human's, so isn't really a 'stroke' in the sense people get them, but central IVE is usually vascular and tends to be a problem of old dogs.

Ok guys ,you've lost me now, whats nystagmus?

Wobbly eye movement to us non-opthalmic folk, Julie, didn't notice any of that in my old girl. I think now considering that it can resolve so quickly that must have been my Nellies problem, Sharon, I'm not sure what I shall do if it happens again. She was so unconcerned, I wonder if having so much a lower centre of gravity she found the experience a lot less unnerving than your poor hound. If she reacted with the same lack of concern I don't think it would be neglectfull of me to let her ride it out again, do you? She is always impecably behaved at the vets but she clearly finds it extremely stressfull.

Hi Isabel, I wondered about centre of gravity too. Piranha was scared the first time, and that was only the second time in her life she's shown fear of anything. (The first time was when she was a pup and Ian came in wearing a full face gas mask:-)). But it must be pretty scary if your legs are almost 2' long, and they start going in all directions! She probably picked up some panic from me too, for she didn't seem alarmed the second time. I hope it doesn't happen to Nellie again, but I don't think you'd be neglectful if you just rode it out. I didn't take Piranha the second time. My vet had suppied the steroid injection for me to give and reassurance in a well lit room saw her right in no time.

Julie, as Isobel says nystagmus is jerky, bilateral eye movements, is horizontal, vertical or rotatory and is caused by lots of things. If you watch David Blunkett the Home Sec. on TV, he has horizontal nystagmus, presumably because he has been profoundly blind since birth or early childhood.

Thanks Sharon, I was feeling a bit guilty about ignoring it, also I'm always telling people not to go looking for diagnosis on the internet, naughty me, do as I say and not as I do eh! :D

ohh we had lots of that then, poor chap looked like he had a real bad nervous twitch,but mostly on his left side. Good job the vet didn't use too many long word eh, I'd have never kept up! :)

Julie
So glad he is okay now ... what a fright you must have had.
Best wishes Gina x

Pleased he's okay and I hope he does not have another episode

Christine

Thanks everyone for your messages, strange thing to say but it's sort of reassuring to hear of others dogs having it and being fine after etc :) he's had a great day today though as I popped into the butchers and got 3 huge bones for them and Buddy has spent most of the day trying to steal the others off them so I know he is feeling fine!:D