Hello, My yellow lab has been on potassium bromide since February for epilepsy. I'm not 100% on board with the meds because I've been noticing changes in her behaviors over time. I am interested in taking her to a vet that specializes in epilepsy. Anyone in NE Massachusetts know of anyone or anyone have a dog on the same meds that can provide insight? Thank you!
Hey @Stacie Burke I am in South Africa, so I can't help you with a specialist, but we have an epileptic Lab too. He was diagnosed about a year ago, and we put him on Phenobarbital tablets. We gradually increased his dose to try and get his seizures under control, eventually adding Potassium Bromide (KBr) out of desperation to avoid long term liver damage from the Pb (he's only 5). Unfortunately he developed a rare reaction to the meds with hind-end weakness (he was only on the Kbr for four days), and we have spent the last few weeks gradually weaning him off the Pb and putting him on a new medication called Pexion (fewer side effects and no long-term liver damage). We are now two weeks seizure-free so the Pexion seems to be working, and our Riddick has his personality back even as he gets stronger and more mobile! The Pb has sedation and lack of co-ordination as a side-effect and Riddick really battled with it!
I'm also in South Africa. My boy has been on Potassium Bromide for 2 years. At first he was overdosed and ended up with KBr blood levels in the toxic range -- discovered because one day he could not get up, appeared paralysed in the backend. Thankfully only lasted a few hours, and we immediately lowered the dose. Our boy is fed raw food, which is low in salt. Salt competes with KBr for reuptake in the kidneys -- it has an interesting route in the body, first being excreted by the kidneys and then being taken up again in the kidneys. When it's taken up again, if there is sodium chloride (table salt) present, the salt competes with KBr so that the salt is taken up and the KBr is excreted. Therefore, if your dog is on a high-salt diet, you need more KBr. In Snowie's case, he is on a low-salt diet, so needs less KBr to achieve the therapeutic levels of KBr in his blood. I did ask the vet -- a specialist physician we consulted for epilepsy -- if his raw diet would affect the dosage, and he said no. Clearly not true, which I have subsequently read on various websites. Originally he was on 4ml/day -- dosed correctly for his weight, which was 34 kg. He is now down to 1.4ml/kg, which the vet says is a very low dose for his weight, but obviously the correct dose for Snowie because the last blood test showed it was in the therapeutic range. We noticed the following changes in Snowie after starting KBr: insatiable appetite, which we gave into, and fed him treats every time he begged cos we felt so bad that he was on medication. He put on 5 kg! I was in denial when someone told me my dog was too fat. He also started to drool (only when food was around), which he'd never done before. The best part, though, is that he became much cooler. He'd always been a very hot dog, and the KBr reduced his temperature, which the vet said is what epilepsy meds do, they cool down the dog. We subsequently reduced his food intake and he is down to 34/33 kg now. If he really seemed hungry, we'd feed him non-calorie veg like steamed broccoli and cauliflower (adores it!). We have seen no change in his personality -- still very friendly, excitable, races around excitedly. Although he did seem to be more sleepy when he had down time. We were happy with this, because before the meds he seemed quite manic at times, which we think was related to the epilepsy. He is fairly well controlled, having had one seizure this year, and two last year. You definitely should have your Lab's blood tested for KBr levels to ensure they are not in the toxic range, especially if you're worried about her behaviour. You should discuss with your vet how often to test blood levels. We test every 6 months now after that first scare. Apparently we were supposed to test after 3-4 months of first dosing, which we did not, because we weren't aware that we were supposed to (lack of communication from the specialist vet).
It seems that what suits one doesn't suit another and visa versa . My seizure girl tolerated phenobarbs very well indeed with no side effects once we had settled on the right therapeutic dose for her . We also had to do bloods every six months to check on her liver function , we gave her milk thistle to help her liver to cope, whether it did or not I don't know but she certainly didn't suffer from any organ damage x
