EMERGENCY – Medication Overdose

[tanlover14]

I have been helping a girl give her bunny daily injections (3x per day) for lead poisoning. 
 

The injections are EDTA – chelation therapy.   Does anyone have any experience with this drug or know anything about the side effects or what can happen if given the 3x amount dosage all in one sitting?  (She gave all three doses in one sitting to the rabbit today).

 

There seems to be no information on the overdose of this drug or even much of the use in rabbits.  And many of the vets we have called have never even heard of the drugs and rabbits. 

 

So any help or ideas or thoughts?

[Sarita]

Who gave her the medication? The vet?

How did the rabbit get lead poisoning….just curious.

[tanlover14]

Yeah, the vet gave her medication… but of course, the vet is at a conference right now… so no one is sure when he will get the message and get back to us.

Sigh… she just moved to Pittsburgh and lives in a very old apartment complex. He chewed on the wall and I guess the paint must have had lead in it. She said she watches him constantly while he’s out (still has access to the paint >) BUT he kept trying to chew on the wall again while I was there. He was nudging me out of the way to get to it and I had to keep picking him up and moving him over… And I know from experience, keeping a bunny away from something he is determined to get to is difficult unless you block it off. She hasn’t. The rescue asked about the bunnies access to the paint (they are helping, he’s not a rescue bunny nor is she a volunteer, she had just heard the rescue could help with her sick bunny) so they are going to try and get her to use an x-pen. Their vet is the vet who treated the lead poisoning with specific instructions to administer the meds 3x a day. So I don’t know what possessed her to think giving him all 3 doses in one sitting was okay….

I really feel quite bad. I was there as I’ve been helping and getting her to do the injections herself. She mislead my questioning into making me think she had gotten permission from the vet or the rescue to do the medications in one sitting. I called the rescue directly after because I felt a little off about it. And of course, she had never asked them as they would have definitely had said NO! They are trying to find a vet who can help as we speak. The emergency clinics around here are pretty useless with rabbits – so unless something emergency happens with the medication – we are holding off to see if we can get a rabbit-savvy vets opinion.

[Sarita]

I would imagine that the answer would be the same about the medication whether it’s a dog, cat, or rabbit about overdosage.

It sounds as if she did not understand the instructions….to me that would be pretty self explanatory…1 injection 3 times a day…but sometimes people get stressed when they are dealing with sick animals and don’t always understand it unfortunately.

[tanlover14]

She definitely understood it – she has been doing the medication for over a week n a half now… she definitely was just being idk how to say it… she just didn’t seem to think it would matter. I told her a few days before when she suggested doing that that it needed to be discussed with a vet because I would be worried about overdosing. So she was just being… idk the right word.

[MoveDiagonally]

A Google search gave me:
“DISODIUM CALCIUM EDTA” LD50 in rabbits 6 g/kg by IP injection.
http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+4072

(WARNING: Link contains reference/information from animal testing)

I don’t know if that’s helpful though or if it’s the same drug. It seems like there different versions under the label EDTA. :/

(( Vibes to your friend’s rabbit ))

[tanlover14]

Oh, the story gets better….

The rescue told her not to leave him out of her sight…. so she goes to the store… and then wanders to the pet store where Nora was rescued from looking around… REALLY LADY? Oh god, people sure can drive me nuts!

So far bun is doing well – but that article mentioned the brain can swell from overdose causing it to be fatal?? As well as you should worry if humans stop urinating…. not sure if those can correlate at all though but I brought them up with her and the rescue anyways.

[LBJ10]

Hmm, a chelate binds to metals and allows them to pass through the body. I imagine excess would start binding to other metals in the body like iron and calcium. Not sure what super excessive amounts would do. Then again, not sure what would be considered a super excessive amount.

[kamdynandsunshinesmom]

I AM just curious tanlover14 are you talking about pittsburgh, pa? I will say a little prayer bunny gets better.

[Bam]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy

Seems there is a risk if it’s not given slowly enough (but this article is on iv-distribution of EDTA to people).

[tanlover14]

Thank you for the help everyone, it’s a really confusing topic it seems! Even a lot of vets around here weren’t very sure how to handle the situation… But I passed along all the information I received here

Anyway, Harrow is doing well and fine and thankfully took his last injection last night. Now to hoping his seizures stop! Poor guy.

Kamdyn – I am talking about Pittsburgh, PA!! It’s a great city with a great rabbit community for sure. I’m lucky to have so many awesome rabbit people around for sure.

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