Emergency first aid for Robin this morning – what to do at home in case of accidental poisoning

It happened at 9am this morning.

I had noticed that Robin has a fur-thinning problem at his flanks in his lower back and this is usually flea-allergy dermatitis, which isn’t life-threatening but can be solved using Advocate spot-on. I’ve had a few cats with this problem before, namely, Tabs and Gerald, in recent years.

So since I still had five tubes of Advocate spot-on from Cow Mau’s supply (for Cow Mau, Advocate spot-on controlled his seizure so well, they completely stopped after being on a tube every 28 days), I applied one on Robin. I have used spot-ons before and never had anything like this (below) happened before.

As I was applying it at the back of his neck, a bit of the liquid flowed downwards, to the left side. Before I knew it, Robin turned his head back and licked some of it. He immediately did a zoomie (that’s zooming off real fast) and he started foaming at the mouth.

I have seen this kind of foaming before in Indy whenever he goes all crazy if I’ve applied some ointment on any sores or bites on myself. He’d sniff at the ointment and foam at the mouth. But he’d be fine.

But Robin was foaming quite a lot. I went into immediate action to try and catch him, but it was impossible. He didn’t want to be caught.

So I took the kibble jar out, shook it loudly and luckily he came.

Caught him in less than 5 minutes of the licking and luckily husband was around. I told husband to hold him down and I took the water hose and flushed his mouth with running water.

Then, I got two charcoal tablets and plonked it down Robin’s throat. I remember from Bosco’s case a long time ago where the vet advised me that charcoal could be administered, but this would only be effective within 20 minutes of the “poisoning”.

Luckily Robin did not protest when I flushed his mouth with the garden hose or when I plonked the charcoal tablets down his throat.

Following this, I continued syringing as much water as I could into his mouth.

I could still smell the Advocate on his body, so I use diluted dishwashing liquid to wash off as much as I could. Again, I learnt this from a holistic vet many years ago. She told me she only uses dishwashing liquid to bathe her cats, if a bath was necessary. Many chemicals are toxic to cats.

Then, I immediately contacted four vets. I know all the clinics had not opened yet, it was only 9.28am then. But I was hoping anyone of the clinic staff would read my messages and show the vet. I also took a video of Robin at 9.28am. He seemed totally fine.

There was no response from any of the clinics until much, much later. I don’t blame them, clinics are always so busy when it opens for the day.

In the meantime, I also checked the Advocate official website for information but I could not find anything helpful for my case. But I did find out that Advocate’s main ingredients are imidacloprid and moxidectin. The one chemical which may be present in certain dog spot-on but is very toxic to cats is permethrin.

I finally had to call our regular vet and ask the front desk to help show my messages to the vet for advice. The reason I needed to contact a vet is to ask if there is anything else that needs to be done for Robin so that I could bring him to the clinic (if there was).  Or perhaps, there are more home remedies that I could administer by myself.

I’m going to share what I have learnt below, but please understand it is only a sharing and does not serve as advice. Please contact your vet if you encounter a similar issue.

Vet No. 1:

The charcoal wasn’t necessary, but since given, it’s okay. Just monitor for the next few days for lethargy, vomiting or seizures. If any of such happens, bring Robin in. There is nothing more to be done for now except to monitor him.

Vet No. 2:

This is our former vet, now my vet-friend, who had gone overseas for her further studies. She is oceans away, but usually she would be the first to respond. She says the 2 charcoal tablets is safe. She says if Robin just licked some of the spot-on liquid, the precautions I had taken would be sufficient. For the next two days just monitor for any abnormal signs – blindness, vomiting, diarrhoea and inappetence.

Vet No. 3:

Vet No. 3 is one of the first vets I got to know when I first started AnimalCare. Even though he isn’t our regular vet, he has always, always been so kind and compassionate with advice whenever I need it. “Tak kira” whether I’m his client or not, he will help. He is also the only no-kill vet I know in the Klang Valley so far.

This vet taught me so much today and I’m going to share all of it here. I received his advice after 3 hours from the episode, so I could not do the induction of vomiting anymore.

The vet said, the first thing to do is to induce vomiting within 30 minutes of ingestion of toxin, and to do this after feeding the cat lots of food. As presence of food in the stomach dilutes the toxin and fibrous food absorbs many things. Then induce vomiting- this may drastically lowers the toxin absorption.

How to induce vomiting? Feed the cat a concentrated salt solution. How salty – as repulsively salty as possible. How much to feed? 15-30ml (by syringe) or until the cat vomits.

I asked if my administration of charcoal was okay. The vet says yes, it would help reduce the absorption of the toxins from the stomach.

Also, to my relief, he said that signs of toxicity may start as soon and minutes of ingestion but severity is correlated with amount ingested.
If there are no signs within a few hours, then he thinks it is most likely not going to cause any clinical poisoning.

And here’s really, really good advice for me from the vet:

When applying topical solution, always start from lower part and proceed upward while pushing the tip of applicator against the flow of hair. This way, the liquid will be directly in touch with skin and spread onto surrounding base of hair too. Keep the tip of applicator touching the skin.

And now, how’s Robin? At the time of writing this blogpost, it’s been almost 7 hours after the licking incident, he seems completely fine and is very alert, so I hope this means he is okay. But I should still monitor him for two more days.

9.19am – right after I washed off the remaining Advocate liquid from his fur. He’s eating kibble. Just wanted to make sure he still had an appetite. He certainly did.

9.28am – the video I took for the vets.

10.30am – he’s fine.

10.54am – snack time with the rest.

Robin ate.

11.33am – he is fine.

1.36pm – Inside the house, he’s fine.

3.15pm – he looks totally okay to me.

I hope he’ll be okay.

According to Vet no. 3, if by now he’s okay, he should be okay. But Vets No. 1 & 2 say to monitor for two days, so that’s what I’m going to do.