Anticoagulant rodenticides continue to be one the most common enquiries to VPIS, particularly in dogs. A single ingestion of a small amount of anticoagulant rodenticide is usually not a problem, but it may be difficult to know if the animal has eaten any other bait. The owner may be certain [...]
Allium species include onions, garlic and leeks. These plants contain a variety of organosulphoxides. Metabolism of the organosulphoxides causes oxidative damage to haemoglobin which results in sulphaemoglobin and this precipitates, aggregates and binds to cell membranes forming Heinz bodies. Eccentrocytes form due to direct oxidative damage to cell membranes. The main [...]
Happy New Year to all our members. We are very grateful for your continued support of our valuable service and are proud to be here to assist you with your poisoning cases. In 2019 we handled over 13,000 enquiries on our VPIS and Animal PoisonLine (APL) lines – a record [...]
Horses are a risk of anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning. In over a hundred cases with follow up reported to the VPIS, most horses (>85%) remained well. Less than 10 horses had evidence of coagulopathy; none had significant haemorrhage and all the horses recovered. Few cases of anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning in horses [...]
Another potential Christmas food hazard are grapes and their dried fruits (sultanas, raisins and currants). This includes Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and mince pies. Ingestion of grapes or their dried fruits can cause renal failure in dogs but this only happens in a minority of cases. Not all dogs are [...]
Christmas is associated with an excess of food and top of the list is chocolate. This of course means an increase in cases of accidental ingestion in pets, particularly dogs. We see a huge increase in call numbers relating to chocolate at this time of year – around 20% of [...]
Status epilepticus is an emergency that requires rapid and effective treatment to prevent neurological injury and systemic complications of prolonged seizure activity. A number of poisons, such as metaldehyde, tremorgenic mycotoxins and permethrin, can cause prolonged seizures. A recent multi-centre randomised study compared intranasal and intravenous midazolam in dogs with status [...]
The mild, warm wet weather this month lead to lots of enquiries about dogs eating mushrooms and we have had several fatal cases. Many mushrooms just cause gastrointestinal signs but some that are less common, cause delayed (> 6 hours) gastrointestinal signs (which are usually severe), renal and/or liver failure. [...]
Fireworks have six components: fuel (usually charcoal, although phosphorous has been used), oxidising agents (usually nitrates, chlorate or perchlorate), reducing agents (usually sulphur and charcoal), regulators (usually metals), colouring agents (such as barium, copper, calcium, sodium, strontium) and binders (usually dextrin). Ingestion of a used domestic firework is unlikely to [...]
Ingestion of pumpkins including seeds is generally not a concern and may cause mild gastrointestinal upset. These fruits can contain extremely bitter-tasting compounds but they have been bred out of crop varieties. Very occasionally these compounds can occur in cultivated species through mutation, environmental stress or an outcross with a [...]
