Help!!! Someone ate the bottle of Rimadyl

Yay Coco!! I'm so happy for you, thank God everything went well!

I just wanted to say thanks again for all the well wishes from everyone.  I really think it helped alot (if nothing else it helped me stay sane).  You all are great!

I can't post from work -- but I just pm'd you with my numbers -- call me on the home phone after I shut the cell off ANY TIME AT ALL -- even during the night if need be.

I've done sub-Q fluids MANY times and I can tell you a lot the vets often omit.  It can be scarey but it HELPS. 

 Liver toxicity makes them sick to their stomach -- but it's because the toxins dump STRAIGHT to the brain -- so they literally *think* they feel sick ... it's not true nausea.  So you can sometimes get them to eat easier.  This may go up and down or she just may 'get better'.

Liver toxicity has some weird foibles -- and one of the things that often helps is a thing called lactulose.  It's a liquid (not unpleasant) that binds to toxins in the brain and gets them "out" of the body. 

But ... it's also a serious laxative.  (That's what it "is" really.).  But they use it a LOT in liver patients (human, dog and otherwise).  The more you give the better they may feel -- but also it's held back as an extra treatment  sometimes because ... well ... it IS a laxative.  *sigh*

Push the milk thistle.  Did they give you Denosyl too?  That's the pharmaceutical grade milk thistle.

Timing can be critical -- so get out your timer and do what it takes to remind yourself.

Hint:  you can get at grocery stores and at Wal-Mart those pill caddys -- usually 7 day of little compartments in a variety of sizes.  I have morning and evening ones.  I have MANY of them.  THEY HELP.

For example -- you can label one set: AM with food and another PM with food.

Then have another set that says "AM -- 1 hr before food"  or whatever the instructions are and then have a PM one.

YOu can put a whole week's worth of meds up at once and sitting there thinking it thru is VERY helpful if you do it ***RIGHT*** once (phone off the hook, whatever you have to do to stay sane).

 BUT -- the upside is this.  You bolt up in bed and think "OMG DID I GIVE CO CO THE AFTER DINNER ONE???"

Wanna go count meds in bottles?  Wanna risk not giving it?  Not me.  *sigh*

But I WILL check my containers before bed to notes that both of Thursdays in all the appropriate containers are GONE.

They aren't expensive - the ones at Wally-world are like 88 cents each.  Six bucks for three "sets" of them?  yeah -- but peace of mind?  PRICELESS!!!!

The dog won't eat out of them -- so when you're done with them put em away!!  You'll use them someday.  In fact, get used to using them and you may discover it's the easy way to remember to take those darned vitamins LOL. 

I hate messing with bottles when I've got 3 dogs wanting fed, almost jumping up and generally creating "OMGOSH I"M SO HUNGRY MOM" chaos.  The little containers make it easy.

Also -- you know instantly when you're almost out of something -- when you're using this many of stuff like milk thistle it makes it easy.

Yes, I use containers like that for powders - but you have to use good enough ones that really 'seal' so they don't draw moisture (sorry -- Wally-World -- sometimes yours don't shut 100% so good enuf for capsules but not for powders!!)

I do it once a week and it's off my mind and it makes mealtime EASY ...

Denosyl is SAMe, not Milk Thistle. They work differently. Denosyl is before food and Milk Thistle is with food.

And Lactulose is awesome. It tastes sweet, and if you have a compounding pharmacy, they'll actually flavor it, for you. I used to buy it by the pint, and Em got 8 ccs every 8 hours. I reduced it to 5, and her stools were only soft (instead of liquid). Eventually, she was able to stop taking it. 

Oh thank goodness! Keep healing, Co-co. 

jennie_c_d

Denosyl is SAMe, not Milk Thistle. They work differently. Denosyl is before food and Milk Thistle is with food.

Hmm -- you ARE right -- it had been described to me (*sigh* by a vet no less) as a pharmaceutical milk thistle.  It's more liver 'support'.  Darn, I've been told by two different people that their vet gave them Denosyl INSTEAD of milk thistle.  And it's not.  It's a good addition ... but it's NOT milk thistle/silymarin!  Thanks Jennie!!

It's one of the things that's worked SO well, for Emma. My vet was being so good, and trying to save me money. I bought Walmart's SAMe and Milk Thistle. She always puked the SAMe, so I stopped giving it. One day, she turned yellow, and he told me to use the Denosyl. I told him that she puked the SAMe, and he said to try it anyways.

It's different, somehow. I don't know if it's the coating or not, but it WORKS. It's pricey, but... she absorbed it, and cleared right up.

They seem to work well, together. Definitely both things I'd give to a dog in crisis.  

One of the pills we got starts with D but I'm not sure if it's Denosyl or not (can't remember) but its a blue pill and I was to help support the liver.  I'm still giving the milk thistle, too.  Although when I put the powder from the capsules on her food she didn't like it too much so I'm still giving her the capsules but I'm going to get some different things at the store to try mixing the powder with since once the capsules are out I ordered powder from that website.

This afternoon we give her the rest of the fluids, and I'll be glad when that is over.  For the most part she does fine, but if I pick a spot she doesn't like I think the feeling of it scares her a little more.  And to me (and I could very well be wrong) it seems like 500ml is ALOT of fluid at one time.  When we're done her whole scruff area looks swollen b/c of all the liquid that's there.

Those pill containers sound like a good idea b/c I *WAS* counting pills last night to see if I missed one *g*.  I'll see if Wally will pick some up on his way home since he'll be at walmart.

TheDogHouseBCMPD

This afternoon we give her the rest of the fluids, and I'll be glad when that is over.  For the most part she does fine, but if I pick a spot she doesn't like I think the feeling of it scares her a little more.  And to me (and I could very well be wrong) it seems like 500ml is ALOT of fluid at one time.  When we're done her whole scruff area looks swollen b/c of all the liquid that's there.

If it sags around the ankles you've got problems.  The area that took the Ringers will be a bit swollen.  Did the vet tell you NOT to put it in the same place time after time??  But to alternate -- back/front/back/front?

Did the vet tell you to warm the Ringers?  so it's close to her body temp? 

What gauge needle did he give?  The smaller the needle the better -- altho the smaller the needle the longer it takes.  But smaller needles hurt less.

You can sometimes hit a place too close to a nerve.  You can ALSO sometimes actually hit a capillary!  My holistic vet told me about that one time JUST before I actually did it.  I re-adjusted the needle because it wasn't 'feeding' ... and it just wasn't allowing the Ringers to flow ... soooo I stopped and withdrew the needle and BLOOD everywhere!!  It would have been scarey as heck if Dr. D hadn't just told me it happens sometimes.  You literally somehow just pick that exact spot and slide it IN a capillary and of course the fluid just backs up -- and when you release it the Ringers mingled with that little bit of blood spurts everywhere. 

It may never happen to you ... but if it does, don't get scared. 

We found with Muffin that it helped a LOT to have him lie on something totally comfy (I bought him a little down laprobe just for this purpose).  But I also covered him up while we were doing it because it tends to make them cold even heating the Ringers before.

You can add other things to food -- a bit of shaker cheese, or weak broth -- some veggies or even a bit of fresh garlic.  My dogs are used to a lot of flavors because I cook for them -- but you might try adding a bit of 'topper' or even something really good for them like jack mackerel or sardines.

Ahhh, the squirting blood.

Callie, you've brought back memories, LOL. I had a little puppy, waaay back in the day, who had chronic renal failure. I gave her 500mL of fluids, twice a day (big bag, every day). Oohhhh, she hated it. She learned to hate it, rather, because it upset me to do it. One day, I popped a capillary and thought I'd killed the poor dog. I was flipping out and she started flipping out, and it was terrible.

Totally not a big deal, though. The vet laughed at me. 

 Thanks for the heads up, that would deffinitely have freaked me out.  I'm not sure of the gage but the tech said it was a relatively big needle.  We were told to move to different spots in the scruff area.  I'll add swelling at the ankles to our list of things to watch for.

Hmm -- I was told NOT to do it twice in the same 'end' of the dog.  To go from the scruff then to the 'butt' (the fleshy area just above the hips), then back to the scruff -- AND to alternate right/left sides (i.e., go from the left scruff to the right hip then back up to the right scruff and left hip over the course of 4 treatments).

Call and check on that -- I had two vets tell me that independantly -- they may be trying to keep it in the area of where the blood will travel from the liver to the brain ... but ... hmmm, I'd check on that.