Not long ago I stumbled upon the rumour that Ibuprofen was highly toxic to dogs. I did some googleing and found several pages that mentioned the fact and stated that it took as little as one pill to kill a dog. Granted, most of them look like they were just Cut-and-Pasting each other but it didn’t strike me as particularly out there to assume it was wrong.
I posted in on another forum I participate in (on Formula One). A couple of resident vets went for the basic line of “never medicate your pets (or yourself, for that matter). Consult a vet” but no specific refutal or verification of the claim.
These days, while talking to my mom on the phone, I thought that giving Advil to a dog is exactly the kind of stuff my mom would do. Not really caring if it was true or not, I told her about it. Lo and behold, she had done it a few times and the dog wasn’t dead (do I know my mom or what?)
So what is the Straight Dope on dogs and Ibuprofen?
It sounds pretty hard to accidentally kill a dog with it, right? (unless the dog finds and eats the whole bottle). It would take a whole bunch of pills a day to kill a moderately sized dog.
How big is the dog? There’s a huge range of sizes in dogs, and it would make a difference- I’m sure that giving an ibuprofen tablet to a St. Bernard is very different from giving one to a Chihuahua.
Also, are you absolutely sure it was ibuprofen, not acetaminophen (Tylenol) or aspirin? People do sometimes use the terms interchangeably for different pain relievers.
I was going to link to a similar study. My dog (a Rottie) was prescribed 100mg of children’s Advil bid for his hip pain. A friend that’s going to vet school was surprised by that and said that she thought that caused GI bleeds and/or kidney failure. I researched around and found that the toxicity is found in quite large doses, and it’s used theraputically in lower doses.
One thing in particular- our vet was very specific to say it MUST must be Children’s Advil liquid, 5cc (100mg) per dose. That’s 1tsp, which is a very small amount in the measuring cup included, just the first hash mark. A whole measuring cup would be 500mg, which could really be a problem for anyone thinking that’s 5cc. Just a tip if anyone else gets this prescribed for their dog and uses the cup included for dosing.
FWIW, my 11 year old dog appears to feel better then he has in MANY years. He’s more active, happier, and obviously pain free now.
YMMV and never, ever give human meds to your dog or cat without asking your vet first.
I am continuously puzzled by these “<…> is toxic to dogs” discussions. Yes, some things, like theobromine, dogs are somewhat more sensitive to than humans, but I’ve yet to see anything that per pound of bodyweight is a couple of orders of magnitude more toxic to dogs than humans (which is the image I get when I hear <…> is toxic to <…>).
A lot of canine deaths and injuries can be prevented if people used some common sense and assumed that things are at least as deadly to dogs as they are to humans, unless they know for sure that this is not the case. Now, if your 10lbs Chihuahua eats half a pound of dark chocolate and dies, that’s not “Oh no, I didn’t know chocolate was toxic to dogs” accident. Sure dogs are 5-10 times more sensitive to theobromine, but a 10lbs human would not live through half a pound of dark chocolate either (Estimated human LD50 of theobromine is 400-500mg /kg of body weight and half a pound of dark chocolate can be up to 1.5g of theobromine).
If you give your 25lbs fox terrier a 600mg Motrin consider that this is roughly the equivalent of giving a 250lbs human adult 6g of ibuprofen – 30 extra strength pills. Now, I’m not a vet nor a doctor, but I think it’s safe to assume that both would require medical attention at the very least, and just a WAG but I don’t think every 250lbs adult would make it through 6g of ibuprofen.
Now, consider a 100lbs St. Bernard and a single 200mg ibuprofen and now we’re in the hazy area that requires considering species sensitivities. I can’t find canine LD50 for ibuprofen but it seems from googling around that for various rodents it is 500mg/kg through 1500mg/kg. So it’s still not very clear cut. 200mg for a 100lbs dog would be roughly 1/100th of the rodent LD50 - hardly something I would try without checking with a vet.
I can understand your frustration, but it’s the classic problem of a little information being way dangerous. Folks are apt to reach for the drug whenever they feel like it if they know that the dog can have “a little.” This usually happens without figuring out what was causing the problem that made them reach for the drug in the first place. So they home medicate the dog, but maybe the problem doesn’t resolve completely, so they medicate some more, and maybe 2 weeks from now when the dog is getting Ibuprophen twice a day and is really settling into liver failure, they decide to call the vet.
Much better for the animal to simply spread the doctrines “Don’t give them pills without checking with the vet first” and “if they eat some accidentally, call the vet.” That way, someone with a more complete education can double check.
We get calls like this all the time at my work (an emergency vet clinic). People wanting to know how much ibuprofen or tylenol or aspirin is ‘safe’ to give their dog. We never EVER give them any information regarding this outside of “Don’t do it.” We never recommend medications, human or otherwise, to people over the phone. It puts us at too much of a liability should something go wrong. And accidental ingestion? If it’s a known toxin, such as ibuprofen or an overdose of rimadyl (canine painkiller), I can often ask the vet on duty if they’re in a dangerous range. More often than not though they recommend that the owner bring the pet in. About the only things I ever tell not to come in are certain chocolate cases (we have a chart of toxic doses based on type of chocolate and weight) and ingestion of those ‘DO NOT EAT’ packets that are found in beef jerky and stuff.
On the rare occasion it’s something odd, like a dog eating their anti-depressants or viagra or something, I just refer them to the animal poison control. As was already stated, a little ‘knowledge’ can lead to a lot of problems.
The dog is about 20 Kg. mixed breed (mostly hound type). My mom has given him single tablets every other blue moon. I am really not worried about the dog. She is bound to kill him by overfeeding long before the drugs can do him any harm.
With my mom being a chemist, I am inclined to believe that she knows what the medicine is but they sell under different names over there and my uncle (who works in Pfizer) drops the stuff like candy and often unpackaged so it is anyone’s guess.
I just went for the standard advice: Take the dog to the vet. Don’t medicate him yourself.
**groman ** is right. Tomatoes can kill you. If a 20-ton truck of them runs you over. Still, Ibuprofen has been singled out over all other drugs for dogs so I was curious to know the SD.
The situation is complicated by the fact that one of the most widely prescribed drugs (by vets) for arthritic pain in dogs, Rimadyl, has potentially severe side effects, especially in Labradors.*
After hearing about a number of unexpected deaths in Labs on Rimadyl, we elected to use aspirin as needed (OKd by the vet). There’s still a chance of gastrointestinal problems, so we need to monitor the beast carefully.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (the type of drug in question in this thread) are rather unique in that the safety and efficacy of each specific NSAID is very species specific.
In equine medicine I use flunixin meglumine like water - it’s a very safe drug. I have heard that it tears the guts out of people at equivalent doses, a reason why it’s not marketed to people. For NSAID more than any other class of drug, I’d want to know that the specific drug (aspirin, ibuprophin, etc.) was safe in that specific species before I gave it.
Giving the correct dose in terms of mg/kg is also important - so the size of the dog comes into play as well.
I see foals and ponies overdosed on phenylbutazone (another NSAID, works great in dogs, BTW) because the owners give a horse dose without scaling down to take body weight into account.
Yep, that’s the freakin’ problem, right there. Well, that and the fact that a lot of folks don’t follow the dosage instructions on OTC NSAIDS for themselves, either. If the recommended dosage is 2 tablets, they’ll take 3. Or 4. Or 6. So they give the pet “just a little bit”, which is still 10x the dosage, and they repeat it every 4-6 hours, when it ought to be given once a day, or once every other day.
A mildly hepatotoxic dose once a year or so is one thing. A mild to moderate toxic dose 5 times a day…that’s bad, bad news.
I have been giving IbProphen to my 16 year old mini dachsund (14 lbs) for two years. He has some arthritis in his hips and had started draging them and losing some control of his back legs. Giving 50mg twice a day and that has helped tremendously. He now walks well for a 16 year old dog, Slow but steady, not draging his ligs or losing control. It only took a few days to see great results.
My Basset Hound is on Rimadyl therapy (for arthritis), and a month’s supply runs about $15.00. Her dog food costs more than that.