The Great Tylenol Caper

Indie is what we like to call a "counter surfer". 

 She knows that sometimes she finds tasty treats up there.  Unfortunately this time she found a plastic bag full of packages of human medications.  One of the medications was a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. 

 Indie's owner had been gone for about 3 hours and when she came home she had found the bottle chewed up and pills scattered around the floor.  Indie's owner did the right thing and called us.  Dr. Sheehy recommended she bring her in immediately.  Tylenol at high doses can be extremely toxic to the liver, so getting it out of her system and getting the antidote was very important.  Our first goal was to get Indie to vomit to get any remaining pills out of her stomach.  The next step to treating her Tylenol overdose was to give her activated charcoal.  Activated charcoal does not taste very good but it absorbs the toxic molecules so they can not be absorbed into the blood stream. 

Activated charcoal is very messy but Indie was trooper and took it very well. 

 While two of our technicians administered the activated charcoal, our office manager tracked down the antidote.  After the antidote was given and Indie's blood work all checked out normal we were able to send her home with her family.  We had to see her again in 24 hours then again in 48 hours.

When Indie came in for her rechecks she continued to act normally and all her blood work was normal.  Thankfully she appears to have had no negative effects on her liver.  She will have to have one more recheck to evaluate her eyes because acetaminophen (Tylenol) can cause temporary or permanent loss of tear production.  Loss of tear production is painful and can lead to blindness if untreated.  If we find her tear production is normal then we can be pretty confident that Indie has suffered no long term negative effects from her counter surfing mischief.

In this case Indie got into the medication by accident, but we do want to remind everyone that human  medications should never be given to a pet without first checking with your veterinarian.  Some human medications are tolerated just fine, but if they are dosed incorrectly they can cause serious, even life threatening problems.  Some medications are never safe at any dose.