Naughty Gabe and Turq, two adorable border terriers, got into a backpack with granola bars, multivitamins, and caffeine pills. The owner, who was in her final year of vet school at the Ohio State University at the time, came home to find the chewed up bottles and immediately brought them both to the hospital. Gabe was much worse than Turq, and he was having seizures by the time he got to the hospital. His heart was racing from the caffeine, and it couldn’t be controlled with medications. Because his clinical signs were so bad, Dr. Gordon started him on dialysis to remove the caffeine. Within about 4 hours, his heart rate was starting to slow down. After treatment, he did have some heart damage that required treatment for about a week, but he was able to go home the day after his dialysis treatment. His housemate, Turq, had similar but less severe signs, but Turq did not need dialysis. Blood tests showed that Gabe had 2.5 times the potentially lethal level of caffeine in his blood at the start of dialysis, but it had decreased to a safe level by the end of treatment. Gabe and Turq both recovered completely and are back to enjoying hiking with their owner.
Caffeine Overdose
