My dog suffers from Epilepsy pretty badly starting recently.He is on phenobarb and is 5 yrs old.?

Question

He just started with this about 3 months ago. At first we thought it would be like something where he would have few seizures a year but, he has about 3 every other week. It is really sad and depressing. Should I switch medicine or what?He has gone through 3 bottles of phenobarb so far. He takes 1 in the evening and 1 in the morning. PLEASE HELP!

Answer 1

Well, your dog could have been having these seisures all along with out your knowing it. The three you see every other week are certainly not all of them. What happens when you are not home??? If your vet feels that the phenobarb is best then you should keep your pup on this med. I worked at a vets office and over time have seen some signifigant changes in suffering animals using this drug. However, any questions you have really should be directed at your vet in order to get the most curent medications and treatments out there. Good luck hun.

Answer 2

Is your dog getting regular monitoring from the vet?

Normal procedure when starting phenobarbitone therapy is to start off on an initial dose and then have a blood test after a few weeks to see if the dog has the correct levels of phenobarb in his blood. Until the condition is stabilised, the dose may well need to be adjusted according to blood test results until the dog is no longer fitting.

Once the condition is stabilised (i.e no more fits) then it will be six-monthly checks with your vet (possibly including blood tests) or obviously checks if the situation changes (i.e if the dog starts fitting again)

Phenobarb is the drug of choice for epilepsy, sometimes combined with potassium bromide. You need to go back to your vet pronto to have this situation addressed - don't be taking any advice about dosage and medication from people on here, for Heaven's sake!!

Chalice

Answer 3

Our Maltese had seizures from a liver problem. We also had him on the pheno barbitol and it wasn't enough.
The vet had us add potassium bromide and it made him act totally nuts so we took him off of that, for other dogs it works well I've heard.
The final drug we supplemented with was called Keppra, it worked excellent and he returned to acting normal and being himself. He still would occasionally have break thru siezures but not to severe. The drug is very expensive but well worth the benefits we had from it.
I would also look into changing to a home cooked diet, commercial pet food could be contributing to the condition. Here's a link for that, we do it and it's easy and the results will really surprise you. Within just two weeks you'll see a health change and it makes you realize how deficient commercial pet food really is.

http://www.drpitcairn.com/nutrition/nutrition_index.html

Answer 4

wow your dog is really badly suffering. I had a epileptic dog as well and he wasnt put on medication the vet told us there was no medicine but obviously he lied i cant help you on the medicine part but when he is having a seizure just make sure there is nothing in the room he can hurt himself on. Just keep him relatively calm is about all i can tell you.
So sorry to hear about your little dog it is a horrible thing having to watch him go through.

Good luck

Answer 5

My mom's dog has seizures really bad too so I understand where you are coming from. We got the dog 9 years ago and she was perfectly healthy till she was about 5 or 6. Luckily my uncle is a veterinarian and he is very helpful. He explained to us that it hurts us more to see the dog like that than it does her. She has lived with her seizures for about 4 years and is otherwise a perfectly healthy loving pet. Our dog doesn't take meds because they really have no proof that they work. Good luck with whatever you decide.