Which popular drugs for humans harm pets?

Of the five top-selling human drugs, do you know which ones are the most toxic if accidentally ingested by your pet?

According to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, the top five drugs — which together accounted for $28.9 billion in sales last year — prescribed for people in 2010 were (in order):

Lipitor® (atorvastatin), the top-selling ‘statin,’ known for reducing cholesterol levelsNexium® (esomeprazole), which curtails gastric acid production and lowers ulcer susceptibilityPlavix® (clopidogrel), a clot inhibitor, lessens the incidence of strokeAdvair Diskus® (fluticasone propionate and salmeterol), an inhaled anti-asthma medicationAbilify® (aripiprazole), used to treat depression and bipolar disorders.

Although it’s best to keep any human-drugs away from pets, according to the Pet Poison Helpline, of the top five, the bottom two are potentially the most lethal. When it comes to Advair®:

(D)ogs that chew into them are exposed to massive amounts of the drug all at once. This often results in heart arrhythmias, an elevated heart rate, agitation, vomiting and even acute collapse. Severe electrolyte abnormalities such as very low potassium levels are likely and can be life-threatening without immediate veterinary treatment.

As for Abilify®:

It is important to keep this drug out of the reach of pets, as ingestion can result in profound lethargy, vomiting, hyperthermia, significant changes in heart rate and blood pressure, and seizures. If a pet ingests this drug, immediate veterinary attention is needed.

However, as any veterinarian will tell you, the most lethal drugs for pets are likely in your medicine cabinet right now, and you didn’t need a prescription for either of them.

1. NSAIDs (e.g. Advil, Aleve and Motrin)
Topping our Top 10 list are common household medications called non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), which include common names such as ibuprofen (e.g., Advil and some types of Motrin) and naproxen (Aleve). While these medications are safe for people, even one or two pills can cause serious harm to a pet. Dogs, cats, birds and other small mammals (ferrets, gerbils and hamsters) may develop serious stomach and intestinal ulcers as well as kidney failure.

2. Acetaminophen (e.g. Tylenol)
When it comes to pain medications, acetaminophen (e.g. Tylenol) is certainly popular. Even though this drug is very safe, even for children, this is not true for pets—especially cats. One regular strength tablet of acetaminophen may cause damage to a cat’s red blood cells, limiting their ability to carry oxygen. In dogs, acetaminophen leads to liver failure and, in large doses, red blood cell damage.

It’s best practice to make sure all your medications are far out of reach of your pets, and you should never store drugs in plastic (even Ziploc-type) bags. They’re too easily chewed through, and since the bags are transparent, the pets can see the potential goodies inside.

Today is World Turtle Day! May 23, 2011 is World Turtle Day, according to American Tortoise Rescue (ATR). Susan Tellem, ATR’s co-founder, talks about why today matters.

World Turtle Day was started to increase respect and knowledge for the world’s oldest creatures. These gentle animals have been around for about 200 million years, yet they are rapidly disappearing as a result of the exotic food industry, habitat destruction and the cruel pet trade,” said Tellem. “We are seeing smaller turtles coming into the rescue meaning that older adults are disappearing from the wild, and the breeding stock is drastically reduced. It is a very sad time for turtles and tortoises of the world.” She added that many sea turtles lost their lives in 2010 thanks to BP’s uncontrolled oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. “It’s a tragic example of putting profits before preserving our environment,” Tellem said.

Lies, damn lies, and…. Brent Toellner of KC Dog Blog does a great job here exploding one of the oddly persistent myths about pibbles.

The prodigal cat — and dog — return: The aftermath of tornado damage in Alabama was unremittingly awful. I had trouble watching some of the coverage, but my wife said I just had to see this video from CNN.  I had to watch it a couple times to believe what I was seeing. The same day, Susan Fox sent me this link from SFGate, so you could read an even more improbable saga. The moral of the second story: microchips are a good thing.

Stories from the road: Dr. Becker is nearing the stretch run of his Big Bus Tour, but somewhere in the great plains he still had time to forward a story about a man and his dog. The man is named Marty Kihn (no relation, I’m pretty sure). The dog is a big, not very well behaved Berner named Hola (shown at right). Marty lived in New York City, was drinking heavily, and had lost nearly everything, including his wife. All he had left was Hola, and ultimately it might have been Hola who saved Marty. All in all, a terrific feel-good story from foxnews.com.

Wanna go for a ride? The cat-came-back video from Alabama wasn’t the best video of the week. This one from AutoNews about a road test in England is. I feel really badly for the poor St. Bernard. If I were him, I’d have taken one look and said “Sorry, ol’ chap, have a good time. I’d rather walk.”

Travel tips: This is a good time to start discussing travel tips for your pets this summer, but the real reason I’m mentioning this story from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is to draw your attention to Best Western’s choice of new pet travel expert. Talk amongst yourselves.

Finally….the picture of the week. Thanks to my pal Maria Goodavage at Dogster for this wonderful picture. Hey, how about a caption contest? C’mon, gang, let’s hear the nominees for what you think the dog on the right is thinking. Comment away, and I’ll see you next week.

I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories.  Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.

Photo credits: Pills, flickr creative commons (RambergMediaImages). Evil Knievel, tortoise.com. Hola, foxnews. Puzzlement, dogster.

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Pugs Not Drugs

Charlie Sheen in Happier Times

Charlie Sheen shown in an undated photo (above) with a stabilizing canine influence in his life.

Although it can’t be confirmed, witnesses report that things have really gone downhill for Charlie since the dog left…

Tagged as: Charlie Sheen dog

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Pugs Not Drugs

Charlie Sheen in Happier Times

Charlie Sheen shown in an undated photo (above) with a stabilizing canine influence, Betty the Pug, in his life.

Although it can’t be confirmed, witnesses report that things have really gone downhill for Charlie since the dog left…

*3/07/11 – Oh no, Betty the Pug has just died!

Tagged as: Charlie Sheen dog

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Suds over drugs: Daily bathing beats antibiotics for resistant skin infections in dogs

Are you the owner of a dog suffering from drug-resistant skin infections? There’s good news from the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando.

My year-old Scottish Deerhound, Rawley, turned out to be a dog with allergies — only my second dog so afflicted, ever. We’ve been struggling hard trying to deal with them.

And as regular readers will remember, two or three years ago my Borzoi, Kryie, had a severe drug resistant staph infection — or series of infections — that never resolved until we got her on thyroid supplementation. (Interestingly she never did test below normal on her thyroid panels, but that’s a subject for another day.)

So when I saw a session on managing chronic resistant skin infections with special reference to dogs with atopic dermatitis (the form of allergy Rawley has), I couldn’t stay away.

Board-certified veterinary dermatologist Dr. Valerie A. Fadok took us on a fast overview of the general topic of resistant skin infections in dogs, dug down into the various drug options in these resistant cases, and then presented her recommendation: ditch the drugs and bathe the dog.

I’m not quite sure what made me happier, being at a session where the recommendation was low-cost and low-tech rather than a Newer! Better! Costlier! product of Big Pharma, or being at a session where the pet owner was being given complete control of the therapy.

Dr. Fadok’s presentation was part of a series sponsored by Pfizer (also one of our sponsors here at Pet Connection), and she did mention that she was a fan of the Pfizer injectable antibiotic Convenia — just not, she said, for resistant staph infections, which are almost always resistant to this class of drugs (the cephalosporins).

In addition to her recommendation to bathe dogs daily to treat skin infections and reduce symptoms of atopy, including itching, she went over a number of shampoos, rinses and sprays she’d seen good results with — both veterinary and over-the-counter products. These included:

Duoxo (her biggest thumbs-up)
Zymox (over-the-counter)
Vetericyn VF spray

A number of chlorhexidine-based shampoos were also highly recommended — I’ll pull a complete list from the session CD when I get to a real computer.I can tell you they covered all price points.

Other important recommendations were to wash daily or, if that’s truly impossible, to use one of the more effective topical products on the whole body every day that a bath is not given.

Leave the shampoo on for 10 minutes, and shampoo the dog from head to toe every time, using a sponge to get the area around the eyes.

It’s pretty intensive, but it’s cheap, almost any dog owner can do it, it stops contributing to the emergence of resistant staph, it’s very safe, and it actually works better than the more expensive and riskier pharmaceutical alternatives.

I’m going to start daily baths with Rawley the minute I get home, and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

One more note: She also talked about the use of desensitization for allergies, something else we’re doing with Rawley. But, she said, not all dogs with chronic skin infections and itching have allergies. Some of them are sensitive to staph itself. I’ve heard about this before, and am going to be checking around to see what, if any, research has been done on the topic.

Now, time for lunch and then I’ll be checking out some disgusting ear infection sessions — my favorite!

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