FAQ
What can I expect during a consultation with Dr. Kube?
Each patient is initially examined and the history and medical record is reviewed by Dr. Kube and a technician.
What is a neurologist?
A neurologist is a specialist who focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the nervous system, including the brain and the spinal cord. Learn more.
What is a Certified Veterinary Pain Practitioner?
A Certified Veterinary Pain Practitioner is a doctor who has received advanced training in pain management and is very skilled at interpreting the physical signs of pain, approaching your pet’s comfort with highest standard of care. Learn more on www.ivamp.org and www.aapainmanage.org
What is a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Therapist?
A Certified Canine Rehabilitation Therapist has backgrounds in physical therapy and veterinary technology. Learn more.
How do I know if my dog is deaf?
The following signs may indicate that your dog may be suffering from some form of hearing loss:
- Your dog doesn’t know you’re in the room until you physically touch him or he sees you.
- Your dog turns the wrong way when you call him.
- He shows no response to outside stimuli, such as the doorbell ringing or other dogs barking.
- His head shakes.
- He shows no response or seems confused when given familiar vocal commands.
- He barks excessively.
- He paws his ears or appears to have itchy, painful ears.
- A smelly discharge comes from his ears.
What is epilepsy?
Epilepsy simply refers to repeated seizures. Seizures may occur as a one time event in an animal from a variety of causes, but only if the seizures repeat again and again over a period of time do we call it epilepsy. Seizures are a sign of brain disease.
What causes epilepsy?
Anything which damages the brain in a particular area can cause epilepsy.
How is idiopathic epilepsy treated?
Medication to control this kind of seizures usually works very well, although sometimes it can be a struggle and animals may need to be on multiple drugs
What medications are used to treat seizures?
A variety of medications are used to treat seizures include phenobarbital, potassium bromide, zonisamide, levatiracetam, felbamate and others…
How do we determine the correct doses of anticonvulsants?
The correct dose of anticonvulsants is determined by examination, seizure frequency and severity, side effects of the medications and blood levels, if necessary.
Can medication keep my dog seizure free?
Sometimes medication can keep you dog seizure free. However, often we are often aiming to decrease the frequency and severity! Often times one anticonvulsant is adequate, although some animals need to be on 2 or more. Dr. Kube is very open to alternative therapies to aid in seizure control and will talk to you openly about alternatives.
What is rehabilitation?
Rehabilitation may include exercise (ROM, stretching, balance, and weight-bearing), underwater treadmill, acupuncture, heat therapy, massage therapy, laser therapy, home care exercises.
What is LASER?
Laser can be used to treat injuries, a variety of wounds, skin problems, and even fractures during the healing process.
Why does an MRI cost so much?
There are many factors that go into determining the cost of an MRI and other imaging for pets. In order to obtain diagnostic quality images, we need expensive equipment that requires regular maintenance to ensure it is safe. Also, unlike most MRI’s for humans, pets require general anesthesia to keep them still enough to obtain good images. As our pet’s guardian, we are tasked with the difficult decisions regarding health care that we do not usually have to think about in regards to ourselves and other human family members. While human MRI’s are more expensive than in the animal world (anywhere from 2-10 times as expensive!!), we generally do not ever see the actual cost of our MRI’s because they go to insurance first. We only usually see our copay amount, making them seem much less expensive to us.
Why do you only MRI part of my pet and not their entire body?
Once Dr. Kube has determined the area of the nervous system that is being affected, we will focus our MRI imaging on that area. We do this for a few reasons- most importantly because your pet is under anesthesia, so we do our best to minimize the length of the anesthetic event to make it as safe as possible. Also, because our machine is owned by another company (AnimalScan), we are charged separately per scan (area of the body) for both the MRI and the interpretation. To do the entire brain and spinal cord would be 3 to 4 separate scans- the brain, cervical spine, thoracic spine, and the lumbar spine.
Why are other diagnostic tests required before I do the MRI?
We require full blood work within 2 weeks of an MRI because your pet needs to go under general anesthesia, so we want to make sure they are healthy enough to do so. We strongly recommend doing x-rays prior to an MRI as well because, in conjunction with the blood work, it will give us a more complete picture of your pets health status. Most of our patients we see have compromised neurologic statuses, so it is safest is we know whether their other organs are healthy enough to undergo anesthesia. We also use the x-rays to see if there is any metastatic disease (cancer, etc) that may have spread to the nervous system. Oftentimes, cancers in the liver and lungs have a high probability of spreading to the nervous system. Other tests may be recommended as well, and are based on your pets signs and symptoms.
