Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Gabapentin helps reduce seizures in dogs with epilepsy
By Platt, S R et al.·Published in The Veterinary record·Centre for Small Animal Studies·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Treatment with gabapentin of 11 dogs with refractory idiopathic epilepsy.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
Eleven dogs with severe epilepsy that didn't respond to standard treatments were given gabapentin to see if it could help reduce their seizures. These dogs were having frequent generalized tonic-clonic seizures despite being on other medications. After three months of gabapentin treatment, six of the dogs had at least a 50% reduction in the number of seizures they experienced each week. While some dogs showed mild side effects like unsteadiness and sleepiness, these were manageable, and the treatment continued.
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Abstract
Eleven dogs diagnosed with refractory idiopathic epilepsy were treated orally with gabapentin for a minimum of three months at an initial dose of 10 mg/kg every eight hours. They were all experiencing episodes of generalised tonic-clonic seizures and had been treated chronically with a combination of phenobarbital and potassium bromide at doses sufficient to reach acceptable therapeutic serum levels without causing significant side effects. In each dog, the number of seizures per week, the average duration of the seizures and the number of days on which seizures occurred were compared for the three months before and after they were treated with gabapentin. A minimum 50 per cent reduction in the number of seizures per week was interpreted as a positive response to gabapentin, and six of the dogs showed a positive response. After the addition of gabapentin, both the number of seizures per week (P= 0.005) and the number of days with any seizures in a one-week period (P=0.03) were significantly reduced. Mild side effects of ataxia and sedation were observed in five of the dogs, but they were not severe enough to warrant the treatment being discontinued during the trial.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17189599/