Most of you know that my boy has epilepsy. It first appeared I believe when he was 4 years of age. Since then I've learned alot about the disease. I changed his diet from "dog food" to "real food" and he hadn't had a food related seizure since. He does have seizures rarely if woken from a deep sleep and sent into action before he is awake; I've written about this often.
I have looked into food related seizures and found that Rosemary could be a trigger. I had not been able to pinpoint the ingredient in anything when he had had a food related seizure. That is until now; the other day I got some new treat samples. They were all natural, great. Only hours after feeding them Luke had a seizure; its been a very longtime since he has had one. I didn't know why this happened and was really stumped at the possible cause.
I read the ingredients yesterday and sure enough; Rosemary is one of the ingredients. It was the treats and he reacted very quickly to it. So now I must make sure that Rosemary is not an ingredient is treats that I give him. Although I hate it when he has a seizure I was very happy to finally find a true trigger.
http://www.canine-epilepsy.com/
This is the same with my black lab (8 yrs.) and my Dad's black lab (6 yrs).
ReplyDeleteI discovered Rosemary was causing seizures in both of them when I had switched to a premium dog food that contained Rosemary extract. I never put two and two together until my Dad's dog tried the same food from the same bag and had his first seizure within 3 hours of eating the food.
I went to the internet trying desperately to find answers. That's when I saw a comment about Rosemary being a trigger in some dogs. I read the ingredients on the dog food package and sure enough it contained rosemary.
This made me think back a few months prior to this when my dog experienced his first seizure. Out of no where he had one. I had to jog my memory of whether I had given him rosemary back then. Then I remembered eating Triscuits Rosemary & Olive Oil crackers. I had given a few to my dog.
I now read every label. I also found on the internet that there has been an up-swing in seizures for dogs and cats. There has also been an up-swing in "natural" food and treats. Rosemary is always listed in these 'natural' products.
I received an email response from a holistic vet who stated that rosemary extract is not rosemary. Excuse me????????? Rosemary extract is derived from Rosemary.
What makes me crazy is that there are so many pets on seizure medicine and I wonder how many of them are also ingesting rosemary. How cruel is that?
Both my dog and my Dad's dog are fine. Neither has been given seizure medicine because these were labeled as "isolated" from our vet.
Someone needs to get the word out about this. And all vets need to ask the owners questions. And the most important one is whether rosemary is listed on the ingredient list.