So yesterday after work I got home and saw the remains of a vitamin bottle all over the floor. It turns out he ate about 125 vitamin D pills.
I took him right to the vet and they induced vomiting and he seemed to vomit some up. He stayed overnight at an ER vet and this morning he seemed to be doing ok.
But now my regular vet just called and said his blood work is all over the place and he is ataxic. The clinical signs of this particular toxicity don’t show up until a little later apparently. I’ve spent a fortune on this already and if he has to stay in overnight ER again, we are approaching an amount I don’t know I could/should pay.
I feel horrible that I left the pills in a place he could get them, but he has never bothered anything but food before. They were on the kitchen counter and he swatted them down.
He is at least 10 years. I didn’t expect him to have a ton of time left. But the thought of it ending like this breaks my heart. I am having a hard time keeping it together at work today.
You can’t feel bad about the vet bills, if you can’t afford them. In truth, we all have to make this choice eventually. The main thing is to ease his suffering.
He is not ok by any means but his latest blood panel showed improvements. He ate too, so that’s a good sign. He is spending the night at vet again for more IV fluids. Thanks everyone for the well wishes.
I hope things turn out well for you. I’m curious, were the pills flavored/chewable? If not, why would he/she suddenly start to eat them? My dog never ever goes for any kind of pill or vitamin unless it’s flavored. He’s eaten (or at least started to eat) a Tums tablet and a flavor-coated Prilosec (why are they flavored??). I wonder if the sudden interest in pills is indicative of some sort of medical/mental issue?
Eh, my dog ate a whole bottle of incredibly bitter pain medication. I mean, I guess it could be a mental issue, if by that you mean he’s a dumb shit.
He’s smart in that he knows the names of all his toys and where they are at any given moment. He has a mental list of all the weak points in our fence, and knows to only exploit them when I’m not looking so I can’t fix them. He actively hides tennis balls so I can never throw them all away.
My dog before the one I have now got a large chocolate bar out of my purse and ate most of it. This was a 20 lb dog. I called the vet in tears and he said it would be OK and it was. Things happen. Best wishes.
Perhaps the vet will work with you and give you more time to pay. When I had to have my dog put to sleep (cancer), the mobile vet quoted me a price of $375, but she was very compassionate and did not ask me to pay immediately and gave me as much time as I needed. I did eventually pay her in full.
Seems the metabolic breakdown products of Vitamin D are processed by bile in the liver and then passed into the digestive tract to be eliminated in the feces.
So keep and eye on Dog and if he is passing stool. Should be a key factor in how well be can eliminate the excess Vitamin D and get back to normal.
Reading about hypervitaminosis D, it seems that, as long as the overdose isn’t kept up long-term, it just leads to feeling like shit for a while and needing to drink plenty of water.