Friday, July 20, 2012

7/20/2012 - Seizure #25 - 9 Months, 25 Seizures

7/20/12 - Cletus had his 25th known seizure tonight. Rated a 7 out of 10 on our scale. The Diazapam worked this time and knocked him out of the seizure. Over the past 9 months, Cletus has had:
- 2 seizures in November
- 12 seizures in January
- 1 seizure in February
- 1 seizure in March
- 1 seizure in April
- 2 seizures in May
- 3 seizures in June
- 3 seizures in July

Why won't the drugs work? Cletus is taking between 16 and 18 pills a day (depending on the day) plus his liquid medication and is still having seizures on a regular basis.

As far as Cletus' doctors are aware of, Cletus has the only known reported case of open lipped schizencephaly in a canine.  The key word here is reported.  Most vets are not aware that schizencephaly exists or they are not aware that this condition is possible in an animal.  Cletus is living proof of this possibility.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, there are 78.2 million dogs in the U.S. (http://www.humanesociety.org/).  Some sites state that schizencephaly affect 1.54 per 100,000 people. According to rightdiagnosis.com, schizencephaly affects 1 in 2719 people or 0.04% of the population (http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/lists/preval.htm).  The fact is that no one is sure how many people schizencephaly truly affects.  If we assume these same statistics in dogs, it equates to somewhere between 1,150 and 31,280 dogs out there with schizencephaly in the U.S. alone.


Please help me to get the word out about Cletus and schizencephaly.  Contact your local news organization about Cletus or have your local news organization contact me directly at dsilber27@hotmail.com

Thank you for your support,

Doug & Cletus

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