poisoning?

Re: poisoning?

lorna o dowd — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:00:35 GMT

thanks for all the suggestions. Without a post mortem guess it'll will be hard to know. seems to have been quick onset as o says was eating and bright in the am. interesting re the hypovit D cream...not revelant in this case...owners not a fan of sunscreen! would have been good to check his CK levels as with heatstroke they should be up right?

was a real bummer he died especially as they had rang 6 hours earlier but then didnt want to pay the out of hours charge to be seen. may have had a chance at that stage.

Re: poisoning?

jd2008 — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 09:08:52 GMT

A few possibilities spring to mind.

Acute HGE will cause significant, sudden volume depletion affecting glomerular filtration rate and this can push phosphorous levels up signifcantly.

Massive cellular damage will also increase phosphorous levels. Sloughing the GI mucosa may be enough but there may have been significant cell death occurring elsewhere in this chap.

Some older style rodenticides - the cholecalciferol types - will cause hyperphosphataemia but these are banned in Australia. Not to say that they are not still being used though.....

On the more obscure side, hypovitaminosis D is becoming common in the Oz population due to the vigilant use of high factor sunscreens. Prescrbed Vit D creams used to treat this are toxic to dogs.

The high ALT mos likely reflected acute hypoxic hapatic cellular damage as a consequance of the hypovolaemic crisis.

Toxin ingestion is a possibility in this instance but another thing to consider would be heat stroke. Usually the gut slough occurs 12-24 hours after the hyperthermia so I'd not necessarily expect the pyrexia to be persisting and presenting at the time of GI signs but I have seen a few cases so severe that the world is falling out of their bottom pretty much straight away.

DiC/SIRS secondary to some other disease process is another possibility. Not sure what part of Oz you are in but where I am most dogs live on the backyard so early signs of illness are left unnoticed and we often get presented with dogs in extremis with the owner unaware of what the dog has been up to for the few days prior except having a vague notion of whether its been finishing its food or not.

The low platelets on your machine may well have been significant. Getting into the habit of making a blood smear when running bloods has paid off for me on many occasions. Falling platelet numbers is the only reliable indicator of DIC.

[quote user="lorna o dowd"]

died before i could even start treatment.

[/quote]

Bummer.

Jane

Re: poisoning?

Utlendigur — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 21:14:50 GMT

Quick google..there are rat poisons containing phosphates (zinc phosphate)

"Clinical signs included depression, jaundice, vomiting and bloody diarrhoea. Post-mortem lesions included large areas of subcutaneous, interstitial and intermuscular haemorrhage, subserosal haemorrhage and liver degeneration" Apparently also causes garlic-like smell on breath.

I think they're also at high levels in some fertilizers.

Would VPIS be able to give any suggestions?

Seems too high to be simply metabolic especially given that the renal parameters are only just above normal.

Re: poisoning?

lorna o dowd — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:47:58 GMT

re rat poison...rbc were hi and membranes injected. if rat bait should see lo rbc and pale membranes??

Re: poisoning?

lorna o dowd — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:44:39 GMT

why the high phosporous thou? also they've a 2 year old bitch who was unaffected so less likely to be something contagious i would have thought?

Re: poisoning?

Aurelijus vet — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:29:17 GMT

Maybe poisoning in rats (rodents) poison.

Re: poisoning?

Richard Fox — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:44:44 GMT

How about HGE? Doesn't explanin the ALT. If toxic then looks like a hepatotoxin - the haem d+ maybe terminal DIC?

Re: poisoning?

Dagmar Steele — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 06:21:20 GMT

Ten years ago we had a couple of dogs dying with the same symptoms. It turned out they had eaten an organic lawn fertilizer. This one contained Ricin, due to a production error.