Facial Stroke in Dogs, Causes, Signs and Treatment

When we went to the vet's, we were hoping she would tell us that it was nothing serious, it would go away on its own and our dog would be OK. But the news were not encouraging. She told us stroke was something very rare in dogs so these symptoms could be related to a brain tumor. It was the spring of 2009, we were living in a rural town in Illinois, about 5 hours away from Chicago. She said the only way to tell for sure was to have an MRI and CT Scan. For this we needed to see an animal neurologist.

We went home and I found a couple places in Chicago area that did this. But it was at least $1500. With our small business hit by the economy, we were in no position to afford it. And even if we did and they found out she had a brain tumor, we were then looking at more than $10.000 for this kind of surgery, which would not even guarantee a complete healing. I was in tears. I felt so hopeless and so terrified and so guilty that I wasn't in a position to help her get better.

Our vet told us that if, in fact this was caused by a brain tumor we would start seeing some other signs soon. For example, she would have change of behavior, like becoming aggressive, she would be depressed and usually hide in a corner avoiding contact with us. She would feel dizzy and nauseated. Or she would walk in circles in one direction, she would lose her balance, she would start having seizures etc... Very very scary symptoms.

In the mean time she prescribed some strong antibiotics for any kind of bacterial infections and steroids for even worse infection such as meningoencephalitis. She said sometimes things like this may occur and there are no known causes, meaning they are idiopathic, but again, it was so rare.

Needless to say we went home extremely frightened, not knowing how to get through this, but we knew we had to stay strong for Katie, and give her the medication hoping it would help. The steroids were making her very weak, but her appetite was good, she wasn't vomiting and she wasn't acting strange. After 2 weeks, the pills were done and there was nothing else we could do to help. We never gave up hoping and we kept believing that it was facial stroke, until one morning, we saw the other side of her face was droopy.

Now she wasn't able to blink her eyes at all, nor move her ears and her cheek. We took her back to the vet's and of course she was telling us to be prepared for the worse. During this time, we massaged her face, her ears and eyes every time we got the chance just so the muscles on her face and around her head don't grow weaker and start shrinking. The vet said we would see a gap on her head right by her ear soon because the muscles would shrink in time. So we kept giving her massages 5 or 6 times a day, during maybe a good 10 or 15 minutes each time. She seemed to enjoy them actually, she loves the attention.

After a couple of months we started to see some improvement, she was able to move her eyelids half way down, her ears were responding to us tickling, although her face was still droopy but no food was getting stuck between her teeth and her cheeks. I can't tell you how great it feels. We were now convinced that it was not a brain tumor, but she really did have double sided stroke and she was slowly but surely getting over it.

It took probably 6 or 7 months for her to get back to normal, but today she is still alive and doing well. 90% of the symptoms disappeared during this period. There are still some sings but you need to examine her really close to notice them. For example sometimes she can't blink her 2 eyes at the same time, but sometimes she can. When she perks her ears, one moves slightly more than the other but I noticed, in the last few weeks, even after 2 years, it is still getting better. Other than that, there are no visible signs left and I believe our massages were a big help in her improvement.

Take your dog to your vet immediately. Although, most of the time facial stroke or bells palsy occur for unknown reasons (idiopathic), sometimes these symptoms are signs of other underlying illnesses like infection in the ear canal or meningoencephalitis (which can effect your dog's brain), or canine vestibular syndrome (usually in old dogs). These symptoms might also be due to a brain tumor like our vet warned us about.

Chances are the veterinarian will prescribe antibiotics and steroids for your dog, this is a very typical treatment as they will help getting rid of infections. In the mean time you need to stay on top of massaging your dogs face. Think of this as physical therapy us humans go through after having a stroke. It is very important to keep the muscles active to prevent them from getting weaker and shrinking. The rest is pretty much a "wait and see" process for both you and your dog.

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