Potassium Bromide Success Stories

Cathy and Zak (Lhasa Apso):

My little Lhasa Apso Zak has just gone 19 months between seizures due to the fact that I added KBr to the Pb he was taking. Here is Zak's history of seizures.

The first drug that Zak was put on, when he started having seizures, was Pb. He never really had any kind of seizure control on the Pb alone. Zak continued to have bad GM seizures and eventually clusters that were coming closer and closer together happening every 10 days to 3 weeks. My vet would increase the Pb dose after each seizure but still the seizures were violent and still happened every 10 days to 3 weeks. When it became obvious that Zak wasn't going to get good seizure control with the Pb alone we added the KBr.

My vet didn't do a loading dose with the KBr, instead we started out with a very low dose and gradually increased it. We would increase his dose, wait a few weeks have his KBr levels checked and increase a bit more and so on and so on until he got to a good therapeutic level. (I might add here that I have found that Zak's Kbr level needs to be on the high side of the therapeutic range for him to have good seizure control.)

I noticed within a few weeks after starting the KBr, even before he got into therapeutic range, that Zak's seizures changed. Zak's seizures went from very, very violent GM seizures to very mild ones with the addition of KBr. We had learned to use the valium protocol and were able to stop the clusters. Then Zak started going months and months between seizures and I knew for sure the KBr was working for him. Then Zak was diagnosed with liver disease from the Pb and had to have a 75% reduction of the Pb. Zak's seizures were still months and months apart even after reducing the Pb so severely.

The only problem Zak has ever had while on the KBr is that every once in a while he will get a bit ataxic. My vet had me skip a dose or two of the KBr and that corrected the ataxia and got Zak back up on his feet.

Zak continues to take a combination of a small amount of Pb and theraputic levels of KBr. I my vet and I feel that the KBr is what has spread the seizures so far apart. After once getting to a good therapeutic level with the KBr, Zak had a 19 month seizure-free streak!!

Cathy and Zak