Veterinarian Dr. Ronit Berdugo has a house-call practice called Island Paws in Key West, FLA, and has treated two canine patients regularly for epilepsy, a Shih Tzu and a Boxer.
"Both had had grand mal seizures," Dr. Berdugo recalls. "When the Shih Tzu, Missy, started having seizures as a very young dog, I gave the owners the options and explained that with the conventional medicines, Phenobarbital can cause liver disease and potassium bromide can cause pancreatic disease. The owners decided to go with a combination of the plant medicines Valerian and Skullcap instead; we never even tried the conventional epilepsy medicines."
The combination of botanicals proved quite effective at suppressing seizures. "Initially, Missy had a few seizures, which we managed with Valium. And she’s been seizure-free now for close to six months."
As with conventional anti-seizure medications, the combination of Valerian and Skullcap does cause drowsiness, Dr. Berdugo allows. "But," she adds, "we don’t need to monitor the liver and pancreas every three to six months as we do with Phenobarbital and potassium bromide."
Sometimes, it can take longer to tackle chronic health problems with alternative remedies, resulting in frustration for a dog’s owner. "With conventional drugs you see results pretty immediately, and with natural drugs it can take time," says Dr. Berdugo. "But with this situation, the Valerian-Skullcap mixture worked just as fast as Phenobarbital would have. I was really impressed."
Dr. Berdugo observed yet another benefit to treating epilepsy with plant medicines.
The owner of her other epilepsy patient, a Boxer named Cheyenne, had treated the dog most of her life either with Phenobarbital or potassium bromide, and whenever she missed a dose or gave the dose too late, Cheyenne would have seizures. "But the owner found that never happened with the Valerian-Skullcap combination," Dr. Berdugo says.
