my dog has been on phenobarbital for a month...?

dear lord · #1 (**permalink**) 06-22-2008

and stupidly I let my parents bully me into trying to lower her dosage. They feel she doesn't need to be on them at all, that the whole reason she went on them is for toxins they felt she might have gotten into. (I dont think she did). Anyways, so we cut her dosage in half for two days and she was totally fine, she even went back to being her up beat perky self but on the third day she had a mini seizure. So I immediately put her back on a full dosage. Now two days after that (today) she just had another one, again very mild and short and after half an hour she was back to herself again but i was wondering if anyone knew that because I had cut the dosage in half for about two/three days how long it'll take for them to kick back in and work fully? she's been on a full dosage for two full days now and when she was on the pills normall she didn't have a single one. MRI is out of the question there's no way I can afford it :-( but i at least don't want her suffering seizures.

ainawgsd · #2 (**permalink**) 06-22-2008

You NEED to call your vet and discuss this with them. They will be able to help you get the seizures back under control.

In the future, DO NOT reduce the dose without the DIRECT supervision of a licensed veterinarian! It is possible and desireable to reduce the dose of phenobarb, but it needs to be done gradually. Reducing the dose by half was WAY too fast a reduction.

Phil W · #3 (**permalink**) 06-22-2008

Yes that may be what triggered it.

We have a Husky that we rescued last August that has seizures too. She is on Pheno and Valium twice a day. She was on a fairly high dose of both for several months and did fine ... no seizures for several months. We then tried to lower the Pheno dose by about a third (with vet's approval) and she did fine for several weeks. Then she started back. We gave her a higher dose for several days and then went back to the original dosage.

In your case, you could try to increase the dosage a small bit for several days to get her levels up but don't do it for long.

Talk to your vet. He may want to do blood tests to see about the Pheno levels in her.

25 years of being owned by Siberian Huskies. I currently have 16 Huskies most of whom were rescued by us from people who didn’t know what they were getting into.