Head Tremors

My 2-1/2 yo Lab has recently had some head tremors that last anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute and a half. They’re very unnerving to watch, an uncontrollable head shake. No apparent trigger as this morning she was just laying around after breakfast. The only thing we can do is try to calm her and pet her, which seems to eventually alleviate the situation. There are several youtube vids out there that show what this looks like. We spoke with Vet about it and all he suggested for now was to go back to Frontline Gold instead of NexGard, but that has not made a difference.

Has anyone else had this experience with their dog?

Are they tremors or seizures? My dog has seizures when he over exhausts himself. They are hard to watch. He loses control of his body and can’t move. The longest one was almost 4 min long. I will have to ask my wife what the medicine is called that we are giving him for this.

Woody had about 3 seizures that I know about. Vet said to change dog food to Chicken and Sweet Potato… They both (woody and forrest) went from liking dinner time to LOVING dinner time and no seizures since.
We were using IAMS.

I’m pretty sure it’s not seizures, and the Vet confirmed this based on symptoms. Only her head seems to quiver, and she even walks around while having it. She’s always been on the same dog food, Royal Canin Adult Lab. And as I mentioned earlier, no apparent trigger – for instance this morning it just happened after breakfast while laying down in the living room. Weird.

First off, my previous post is admittedly wrong – these head tremors are small seizures. Vet said if they last longer than 5 minutes, get her to emergency care. Longest one so far has been just under 2 minutes.

UPDATE – SEPTEMBER 20, 2018 FDA ALERT: https://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/CVMUpdates/ucm620934.htm

It appears there may in fact be a seizure link to the Nexgard chewable flea & tick meds I had been giving my dog, as suspected by my Vet. I don’t blame my Vet, she’s good, and she was on the right path. But I’m mad as h— about these big pharma-sons-a-b–. Not to worry, I’m not going down to HQ with a bad attitude or anything else. I just want to warn others here about this news.

In an unrelated, but pharma-related rant, if you’re taking a statin for “high” cholesterol – big mistake.

Thanks for the warning! I switched my dogs to Nexgard this year and haven’t noticed anything but it’s good to know what to look out for.