Phenobarbitol and Seizure Treatment
After
witnessing several seizures of my 3 1/2 year old Rottweiler, the vet told
me to put him on Phenobarbitol. I started giving him the pills two days
ago, and he has barely been able to walk a step without tripping over
himself. I'm worried that the dosage is too high. I am giving him 4 x
60 mg. tablets a day -- 2 in morning and 2 at night -- for a total of
240mg/day. He weighs 102 pounds, and when I started him on the meds, he
had seizures 3 days in a row (at least; he may have had others when I was
not home). I am wondering whether it may be wise to reduce the dosage.
This poor guy is out like a brick all day, all night.
Seizures in dogs can have many origins. Although we may diagnose a seizuring dog as being epileptic, determining the precise cause is usually difficult due to the inaccessibility of the dog's brain. Phenobarbitol is a sedative / tranquilizer. It raises the threshhold for spontaneous electrical transmissions in the brain, making seizure occurance less likely. Being a tranquilizer, phenobarbitol has seditive side effects which are dose dependent. The dosage window is quite broad. The object is to give the least amount of phenobarbitol possible while still decreasing the frequency of seizures. Most of the time total elimination of seizures is not possible, and we are pleased to just decrease the frequency of occurances.
When a dog is first put onto phenobarbitol, the goal is to stop the seizures from occurring for more than one week or longer. We tolerate the seditive side effects for this time. Then, we reduce the dosage gradually until the dog seizures again. Then, a final dosage is calculated. Some patients are monitored closely with blood phenobarbitol levels determined regularly. Others do well, and are merely examined once or twice a year.
Communication with the prescribing veterinarian is critical. The doctor needs to know how sedated your dog is to help in dosage determination.
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