Improving seizure control in dogs with refractory epilepsy using gabapentin as an adjunctive agent

Abstract

Addition of gabapentin to phenobarbitone and/or potassium bromide increased the interictal period and shortened the post-seizure recovery in some canine epileptics. In some dogs, seizures were prevented completely, while in others there was an increase in interictal period. The short-half life of gabapentin has advantages for seizure control, however its present high cost may prohibit therapy in large dogs.

Epilepsy in Border Collies: Clinical Manifestation, Outcome, and Mode of Inheritance

“…Approximately 20–30% of treated dogs have been said to respond poorly to treatment with phenobarbital and potassium bromide, but this observation did not correspond with our data 25 . Unfortunately, no consistent definition of drug resistance exists, and previous studies in dogs used different criteria to assess medical response, which may explain the variable results 25–30 . Although research on epilepsy has advanced substantially in the past decade, the origin of drug resistance or observed heterogeneous response to AEDs among individuals has not been adequately explained yet 31 .…”

Effect of PO Administered Gabapentin on Chronic Lameness in Horses

“…Most common side effects associated with gabapentin in people include somnolence, dizziness, ataxia, fatigue, and asthenia, however, convulsions have occurred in less than 1% of treated cases [36,37]. In dogs, mild sedation and ataxia have been the primary complaints by the owners [14,15]. No sedation or ataxia was observed in any of the horses at any time during the course of this study.…”

“…In dogs, mild sedation and ataxia have been the primary side effects reported by their owners [14,15]. The pharmacokinetics and behavioral effects of gabapentin in horses has been previously evaluated [10,11].…”

“…The horses were video recorded using the same system previously described.Gabapentin was administered orally every 8 hours beginning on day 1 and continued for fourteen days. Treatment doses of gabapentin selected (5 and 10 mg/kg bwt) were based upon previous doses safely used in various veterinary species as well as practitioner experience in clinical cases[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Horses were monitored on a daily basis for evidence of common side effects observed in other species such as sedation, ataxia, and fatigue[9,10,14,15].…”

Assessment of the effects of adjunctive gabapentin on postoperative pain after intervertebral disc surgery in dogs

“…In dogs GBP is less suitable as a basic antiepileptic treatment because of its short elimination half‐life (Vollmer et al. 1986; Kukanich & Cohen 2011) and therefore is mainly used to treat refractory epilepsy in dogs, often as an add‐on drug to other antiepileptics (Govendir et al. 2005; Platt et al.…”