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Old May 16th, 2010, 07:52 AM
DVB DVB is offline
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I have a question for Dr. Lee

Dr. Lee i have a golden retreiver,and he is 5 years old.he has had 4 seziures now,in the last 3 months.now after the first 2 which were nine days apart we took him to the vets and had blood work done, all the test came back clear. after that he had another one 16 days later.everything was all good until last night, he had another one (25 days later) i read that rubarb leaves could cause convolsions.yesterday morning i seen him where we had some and it looked like he got some before i could get to him(the rubarb is gone now i pulled it out) am i just grabbing at straws here or could the rubarb be the problem? It just seems like everything that i have read indicates the if it were seziures that they would come closer together not farther apart. any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Old May 17th, 2010, 10:21 AM
DVB DVB is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DVB View Post
Dr. Lee i have a golden retreiver,and he is 5 years old.he has had 4 seziures now,in the last 3 months.now after the first 2 which were nine days apart we took him to the vets and had blood work done, all the test came back clear. after that he had another one 16 days later.everything was all good until last night, he had another one (25 days later) i read that rubarb leaves could cause convolsions.yesterday morning i seen him where we had some and it looked like he got some before i could get to him(the rubarb is gone now i pulled it out) am i just grabbing at straws here or could the rubarb be the problem? It just seems like everything that i have read indicates the if it were seziures that they would come closer together not farther apart. any help would be greatly appreciated.
If anyone could reply to this it would be greatly appreciated, we are just a little confused and dont know what to do.
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Old May 17th, 2010, 07:50 PM
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Dr Lee Dr Lee is offline
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These seizures are not caused by the rhubarb.

Rhubarb toxicity is serious and can lead to kidney shutdown which you would have seen on blood testing. And you are correct, they would have occurred closer together and not so far apart.

With seizures with the intervals you are seeing, if there was toxin involved then 1) he would not look "normal" inbetween the seizures for so many days and/or 2) he would be re-exposing himself to the toxin prior to each seizure if we are talking a 16 day window in some cases.

So what are causing the seizures?
For seizures we look for causes inside the head and outside the head. Most outside the head causes will be seen on blood work. Unfortunately to look inside the head we are looking at tests such as MRI and CSF tap. At 5 years of age we are on a cusp of when we really need that MRI. Epilepsy will be one of your top concerns for pets that are between 6 months and 5years of age. With dogs that are less than 6 months of age or older than 5 years, then epilepsy is unlikely. Here we are right at that cutoff. So finances permitting, run the MRI etc. If not then we treat empirically.

When do we treat?
If one or more of three conditions occur: 1) the seizures occur more frequently than every 3 months; 2) there are cluster seizures; that is short seizures that occur several seconds or minutes intervals; and 3) seizures that last greater than 5 minutes. If the flailing occurs more than 5 minutes, then antiseizure medication is recommended.

Phenobarbitol still is the most common drug of choice. Most dogs do well. I have also had good luck with Zonisamide and in some cases Keppra.

I hope that this helps and answers your questions.
__________________
Christopher A. Lee, DVM, MPH, Diplomate ACVPM
Preventive Medicine Specialist With a Focus on Immunology and Infectious Disease
myvetzone.com
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