hobbyhorse23
Well-Known Member
I got this in my email this morning from a coworker. I thought it was another one of those forwards that may or may not be true, but it turns out this is a first-person story that actually happened to her this week. I thought I was pretty up on household toxins for pets, but I can tell you I had no idea about this one!
I hope this helps save a life as she intended it to.
"Some of you know my story, but I want to share this with everyone so they can avoid a potential tragedy with their dog.
I've been taking care of a chocolate lab named Coco while her family is on vacation. Monday night Coco and my dog, Jake, were attempting (my theory) to reach some cat food on a counter in my kitchen...brats, right? In the process, they knocked over some stocking stuffers that were also on the counter. Among the items were various candies, a couple of chocolates, and some gum. When my husband got home (I was working that night) he noticed empty wrappers and an empty container of gum. He called me right away because he'd noticed the dogs had eaten a couple of Frango like chocolates. Uh-oh....chocolate!
I immediately called the vet and told them what they'd eaten...a bag of Sour Patch Kids, a couple of chocolates and almost a full container of Ice Cube/Ice Breaker sugar free gum. As soon as I mentioned the gum, it was a huge red flag for the vet. I was completely surprised. I hadn't thought about that being an issue. The vet and I immediately went online to find more information about the gum, which was very limited. We did find out that the main ingredient was something called Xylitol-a sugar substitute being used more and more in gum, candy and sweets. Well little did I know that Xylitol is completely toxic to dogs! The sweetener does not affect humans adversely, but Xylitol triggers insulin release in dogs which can lower their blood sugar and cause seizures, etc. The biggest concern is liver failure. Some dogs show no symptoms of low blood sugar, but then go into liver failure within a few days. Others are found comatose within minutes.
In my situation, after my vet made a call to Hershey's- the maker of the gum, it was determined that 4 pieces of this particular gum were toxic to a dog Coco's size and 6 pieces to a dog Jake's size. There were no less than 35 pieces in that package...all gone. My husband immediately took the dogs to the ER vet-initial cost quote for 12 hours of care for both dogs was almost $2,000 dollars. My dog Jake's glucose levels were normal, but Coco's were low and you could actually smell the mint on her breath. In fact, when I got there two hours later I could still smell it. We took Jake home, fed him bread every hour to keep his glucose levels up, and watched him through the night...he was and is still fine. I don't believe he actually got any of the gum.
Coco was not okay. She was on a glucose drip through the night but by morning her glucose levels had stabilized. I took her first thing in the morning to her vet to be evaluated and treated. At this point she started having diarrhea, not a good sign but I felt better because she was acting relatively normal. The vet informed me that we would not be out of the woods for up to three days...big concern was liver failure. At that point one of her liver tests was abnormal. By the afternoon, it was three times what it should have been. By ten o'clock that night, it had started to stabilize...thank goodness. The vets kept her on IV fluids and started administering meds to help with liver function and to try and combat liver failure.
As of 4:30 this afternoon, I was able to take Coco home. Her elevated levels had started to decline and the vet was cautiously optimistic that she had come through to the other side.
When this happened I started doing research and found that more and more dogs are dying from this every year. In a small dog, half a piece could be deadly. I read about dogs going into comas thirty minutes after ingesting it, some dying several days later-their owners having no idea what caused their deaths.
It makes me sick to think what could have happened if I hadn't called the vet and mentioned the gum. What if I hadn't caught it within a relatively short period of time? Why is it that I had no idea? As a matter of fact, only one person I've talked to about this had even heard about Xylitol poisoning. Today at the vet I was looking through all the brochures they had and at their bulletin board and there was not one stitch of information posted about this. So here I am, telling you about what happened so hopefully you will tell someone else and everyone will become aware of it. We were so lucky, but it could have been such a tragedy.
Here is a link to an article I found about it and I've attached a picture of Coco [photo removed].
http://www.guidedogs.com/site/PageServer?p...vettips_xylitol
-[name removed]"
Scary stuff!
Leia
"Some of you know my story, but I want to share this with everyone so they can avoid a potential tragedy with their dog.
I've been taking care of a chocolate lab named Coco while her family is on vacation. Monday night Coco and my dog, Jake, were attempting (my theory) to reach some cat food on a counter in my kitchen...brats, right? In the process, they knocked over some stocking stuffers that were also on the counter. Among the items were various candies, a couple of chocolates, and some gum. When my husband got home (I was working that night) he noticed empty wrappers and an empty container of gum. He called me right away because he'd noticed the dogs had eaten a couple of Frango like chocolates. Uh-oh....chocolate!
I immediately called the vet and told them what they'd eaten...a bag of Sour Patch Kids, a couple of chocolates and almost a full container of Ice Cube/Ice Breaker sugar free gum. As soon as I mentioned the gum, it was a huge red flag for the vet. I was completely surprised. I hadn't thought about that being an issue. The vet and I immediately went online to find more information about the gum, which was very limited. We did find out that the main ingredient was something called Xylitol-a sugar substitute being used more and more in gum, candy and sweets. Well little did I know that Xylitol is completely toxic to dogs! The sweetener does not affect humans adversely, but Xylitol triggers insulin release in dogs which can lower their blood sugar and cause seizures, etc. The biggest concern is liver failure. Some dogs show no symptoms of low blood sugar, but then go into liver failure within a few days. Others are found comatose within minutes.
In my situation, after my vet made a call to Hershey's- the maker of the gum, it was determined that 4 pieces of this particular gum were toxic to a dog Coco's size and 6 pieces to a dog Jake's size. There were no less than 35 pieces in that package...all gone. My husband immediately took the dogs to the ER vet-initial cost quote for 12 hours of care for both dogs was almost $2,000 dollars. My dog Jake's glucose levels were normal, but Coco's were low and you could actually smell the mint on her breath. In fact, when I got there two hours later I could still smell it. We took Jake home, fed him bread every hour to keep his glucose levels up, and watched him through the night...he was and is still fine. I don't believe he actually got any of the gum.
Coco was not okay. She was on a glucose drip through the night but by morning her glucose levels had stabilized. I took her first thing in the morning to her vet to be evaluated and treated. At this point she started having diarrhea, not a good sign but I felt better because she was acting relatively normal. The vet informed me that we would not be out of the woods for up to three days...big concern was liver failure. At that point one of her liver tests was abnormal. By the afternoon, it was three times what it should have been. By ten o'clock that night, it had started to stabilize...thank goodness. The vets kept her on IV fluids and started administering meds to help with liver function and to try and combat liver failure.
As of 4:30 this afternoon, I was able to take Coco home. Her elevated levels had started to decline and the vet was cautiously optimistic that she had come through to the other side.
When this happened I started doing research and found that more and more dogs are dying from this every year. In a small dog, half a piece could be deadly. I read about dogs going into comas thirty minutes after ingesting it, some dying several days later-their owners having no idea what caused their deaths.
It makes me sick to think what could have happened if I hadn't called the vet and mentioned the gum. What if I hadn't caught it within a relatively short period of time? Why is it that I had no idea? As a matter of fact, only one person I've talked to about this had even heard about Xylitol poisoning. Today at the vet I was looking through all the brochures they had and at their bulletin board and there was not one stitch of information posted about this. So here I am, telling you about what happened so hopefully you will tell someone else and everyone will become aware of it. We were so lucky, but it could have been such a tragedy.
Here is a link to an article I found about it and I've attached a picture of Coco [photo removed].
http://www.guidedogs.com/site/PageServer?p...vettips_xylitol
-[name removed]"
Scary stuff!
Leia
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