Does my dog need vaccination against Leptospirosis?
Dear Dr. Forsythe: Our three-year-old bulldog has been having seizures for the last year, and we have been giving him Phenobarbital twice daily. The other day he started having seizures every two hours all night, so we took him to the emergency hospital. They told us he needed additional medication for life, and that the disease would progress. We are worried about what the seizures are doing to him, and isn’t all the medication just as bad as the seizures? Bulldog lover Dear Bulldog lover: No, I don’t believe the medication is just as bad as the seizures. Every time a pet suffers a grand mal seizure, millions and millions of neurons begin rapid firing in succession. During this time, brain cells are dying as neurotransmitters are released more rapidly than the pet’s brain can process the messages. When the pet begins having “clustered” seizures (repeated seizures at very close intervals), it could mean that the disorder has worsened, and the pet’s “seizure threshold” is lowering, maki
