Human Medications Can Be Dangerous For Your Pet

Credit: The Seattle Times

Dr. Joe Musielak, an emergency-care veterinarian at Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital in Snohomish, says there is an emerging class of toxins: consumption of human medications by pets, especially pain meds. (Dr. Joe, as he prefers to be called, is pictured right with Basil, owned by Pilchuck vet tech Risa Hill.) He answers this week’s questions.

Question: Why can’t dogs and cats be given over-the-counter human pain medications?

Answer: The problem with giving dogs and cats human pain meds, such as aspirin, Tylenol, and ibuprofen, is two fold.

First, most human medications are dosed for an adult human. Very few dogs and even fewer house cats weigh as much as an adult human. From the start, there is an overdose problem.

Second, cats and dogs are not humans. Their metabolism differs from ours in significant ways.

Cats, for example, cannot metabolize acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) as we do. Tylenol exposure can be fatal to cats because acetaminophen eliminates the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen to the rest of the body. This causes a death similar to suffocation.

A dog that chews up a bottle of ibuprofen, for example, may seem fine for a day or two. But then severe stomach ulceration and kidney failure may start. A pet’s prognosis is much worse and a hospital stay and subsequent cost are greater if we wait until they show clinical symptoms with medications like ibuprofen.

Question: What about aspirin?

Answer: Dogs can take aspirin in low doses; however, there are much more effective pain relievers for dogs that are also safer.

Question: What kind of organ damage can these human medications cause when ingested by pets?

Answer: Pets can have significant — even life-threatening — kidney damage from ingesting human medications without showing any outward signs of trouble.

Pets with kidney failure can have a decreased amount of urine, an increased amount of urine or it can appear to be normal. Sometimes the kidneys are just getting rid of excess water in kidney failure and not removing waste products, which can build up to toxic levels.

For example, when a pet’s blood values are elevated, at least 50 percent of the kidneys are likely damaged, something an owner wouldn’t know without blood tests. When pets start to show symptoms of kidney failure (vomiting, loss of appetite, abnormal urination), at least 75 percent of the kidneys are likely damaged.

In some cases, with supportive care, the remaining healthy kidney tissue can improve in function and return to a level capable of sustaining life. Obviously, the greater the damage, the less chance the healthy tissue has of “regenerating.”

Pets can also experience liver failure, intestinal ulcers or bleeding disorders from some of these medications.

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Human Medications Can Be Dangerous For Your Pet