Many dog owners are heart-broken seeing their pets go through epileptic attacks and wonder about the best ways to help their pets. Fortunately, there are some medications (drugs) that are quite effective in bringing seizures under control.

One of the most commonly used is phenobarbital for dogs, a drug which in some countries is still used by epileptics. But we are going to concentrate here on phenobarbital for dogs, not for people.

Phenobarbital For Dogs

Phenobarbital is a powerful drug, so its dosage must be strictly adhered to as prescribed by your vet. Yes, it can be lethal if overdosed. What makes it so popular is its low cost and effectiveness. The effectiveness of the drug is greatest for idiopathic epilepsy ( which means that we do not know its real causes); though phenobarbital is very effective, it does not cure epileptic attacks nor does it control them in 100% even in case of idiopathic epilepsy.

The success rate stands at about 70-80% for this kind of epileptic attacks. That success rate is even lower for certain breeds such as German Shephards, Beagles or Huskies. For these breeds, many vets start prescribing phenobarbital early in their seizure treatment therapy.

In the opinion of some vets, phenobarbital is not necessary when seizures occur more rarely than every two months. The reason is that, just like every drug, phenobarbital can cause serious side effects in dogs.

On the other hand, when seizures occur more often than that, they can cause a serious brain damage. Thus, like with everything else in life, it is a careful balancing act between take or not to take, and if so, how much to administer. The best advice is to take it and act with caution. But the best person to ask is your vet.

Epilepsy Definition

Epilepsy is not the same as seizure. Seizure may be a one time event, but for seizures to be called epileptic in nature, they must occur repeatedly over a certain period of time. Epilepsy is, then, a neurological event that leads to sensory malfunction.

Idiopathic Seizures

Since there may be other issues causing the seizures such as head injury or brain tumors, most vets will run a number of blood and urine tests to eliminate the possible causes for the epileptic attacks your dog is experiencing.

It is interesting to know that very often the lab tests will show... nothing. Absolutely, no explicable reason for these type of seizures. The urine tests will look great, the blood tests will make your dog look like a super healthy dog. Yet, the seizures will keep on appearing. And the vets will keep on being baffled by what causes these seizures.

If this is the case, your dog is suffering from, as mentioned above, idiopathic epilepsy. And this is the time when phenobarbital for dogs is a drug of first choice for most vets. It is exactly for this type of epileptic attacks, not caused by other obvious and discovered factors, that phenobarbital has proven itself as one of the most effective drugs so far.

Phenobarbital is taken orally and it is not an over-the-counter drug. It belongs to the group of drugs called barbiturates. It acts as a depressant for the central nervous system.