Adverse drug reaction and your dog
My dog Sky had surgery recently.
Sky is a regular visitor to my local Vet. clinic. She is contiually developing small, pre-cancerous skin lesions on her abdomen due to the fact that she has pink skin with very sparse, fine hair there, and she loves to sunbathe. I have several measures in place to thwart her sun-seeking bent, but it is amazing how clever she is at finding ways to defeat me.
So, every few months, Sky has to have new little spots frozen off. My Vet. does this with the help of a gentle sedation for Sky. Occasionally, we miss one and it grows rapidly into an ugly, purplish cancer, which then requires surgery under general anaesthetic. This had happened again and Sky was booked in for her operation a couple of weeks ago. Sky is 16 years old now, which means that my Vet. wanted to be particularly careful with her anaesthetic and with the choice of drugs Sky was given.
Everything went well, and I collected a rather groggy Sky from the Vet’s according to plan. Only, this time, it was soon apparent to me that something was wrong with Sky. Instead of settling down to sleep off the aftermath of her anaesthetic in the warm quiet place I had prepared for her, Sky was restless, prowling around and seeming disorientated. I thought she might be in pain, but I remembered the nurse had told me they had given her an injection for pain relief just before I collected her.
I thought she might settle down later in the evening, but far from it. In fact, she kept me up most of the night, prowling around, howling (very uncharactistic behaviour for her), generally behaving as if she could see ghosts, and as if she was unaware of my presence.
Towards morning, she finally relaxed and we both got a couple of hours’ sleep.
A phone call to my Vet. later in the day confirmed my suspicions: in their efforts to be super safe with the drugs they used on such an old dog, they had given her a different pain killer from the one they routinely used. As a human health care professional, I knew that the particular drug they had given her can cause some patients to have hallucinations. Poor Sky had been having a “bad trip”. I asked the Vet. to make a note of her reaction so that they would not use this drug for Sky again.
If this happens to your dog, don’t panic. There is not much that can be done; you will just have to ride it out until the medication wears off. All you can do is make sure the dog is in a safe environment where it can come to no harm. Do not let the dog go outside except on a lead. The medication will wear off in a few hours.
As a precaution for the future, make sure you let your Vet know what happened. If your Vet. confirms an adverse drug reaction, make sure you record the name of the drug for future reference.
