unresponsive after dentist: ketamine, morphine, valium?

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akbahsMum

akbahsMum

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So, its 10:45pm. Akbah had his teeth cleaned at the dentist this morning, the thread about that is here.
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=69343

He came home at about 5pm, and was awake, groggy, but able to drag himself around. He sat on my lap for awhile, he ate sparingly.
At about 7pm he went into this kind of ... state. He lays very very still, and doesn't lift his head, he feels slightly stiff. He is breathing.
If i open his eyes, the inner lid doesnt open.
I put a tiny bit of his favourite food on a spoon at about 9, and put it into his mouth. He swallowed it, but I wont do that again, he might have breathed it in and then we'd be *(&ed.
His BG: (this is an OTJ cat)
at the vet, so say, 12:30pm: 10 = 180
5pm: 12.9 = 232.2
he is normally about 4.5, say 90.

At the dentist he had ketamine, and valium, and the vet also mentioned some morphine.
My question is, what do I do if Akbah has had too much special K.
?
 
Have you talked to the vet /dentist? I personally would be running to the ER. This sounds very abnormal. I hope your sweet kitty will be okay.

good luck,
laur
 
I have no advice but I so hope you are able to get him to an ER right away. I know not everyone has one within driving distance. I will be thinking about you and Akbah. I really really hope he is OK.
 
Definitely go to a vet......either ER or the one who did the dental and don't wait on it. He may need fluids to help clear drugs out of his system. Until you can get him to a vet, carry him in your arms to keep him warm, massage his body and do not let him lay for long on just one side if you cannot carry him. Flip him every now and then to his other side, move legs up and down, etc. and keep him warm. do you know if he was given any fluids with the dental?
 
Oh I hope your kitty starts to respond. Possible that the ketamine, morphine and valium have overly suppressed the central nervous system. Watch his breathing to see if it's labored or not. Hopefully you have been able to get a hold of the vet.
 
Sending you all my best for a complete recovery. I'm so sorry your kitty is having trouble.
I imagine you are at the ER. ((((((hugs to you)))))))
 
Hello dear people. I was torn between letting him recover at home, risking complications, or take him to the ER, and stress him an enormous amount. And probably have them shoot him waaaay full of insulin, as he was sitting at 14.5 (261 in US numbers) at 11:30pm. I watched him carefully and waited, and did they thing with the wet facecloth suggested by BJM in the other thread. I sat next to him so that I could keep him a bit warm (he couldn't sit on me) and so that I could keep an eye out for trouble breathing or spasms. He moved himself from time to time is all that happened, for a very long time, and if I rubbed him too much, he complained by groaning at me. I sat next to him and read a book from midnight till about 1:30 when I thought, as he struggled to his feet and laid down again, "I bet he wants to go to the toilet". I thought about carrying him out to his tray. Instead, he wet the lounge. So I picked him up, brought the tray in, put him on it (nothing more came out), wiped him down, put a wet tissue in his mouth to wet it, put some cream on his nose to make him lick it off, wiped him down again, and discovered that at some point, probably soon after I started, he'd opened his eyes. Hello Ak.
I tempted him with milk and with waterbowl and with wee tray but he wanted none. I put him back on the couch. He jumped down, and recovered from jumping, then shuffled into the bedroom and JUMPED ON THE BED. He's curled up at my husband's feet. I think he'll be alright, but I'm staying up a bit longer to carry out some of Hope's ideas, carrying him a bit, as the business of cleaning and fussing seemed to have woken him and done him good.
I'm going to take the 911 down now. Thanks for being there, sorry I kind of ignored your advice, I reallyappreciated the hugs.
 
Hope + (((Baby)))GA said:
He may need fluids to help clear drugs out of his system. Until you can get him to a vet, carry him in your arms to keep him warm, massage his body and do not let him lay for long on just one side if you cannot carry him. Flip him every now and then to his other side, move legs up and down, etc. and keep him warm. do you know if he was given any fluids with the dental?
Click to expand...

The vet commented that they gave him a lot of fluids and probably flushed some of the drugs out, which is why I'm surprised at this relapse. He had his thing probably at midday, and was out by 5, which is the 4-6 hours you'd expect... and then at 7, he went down again for another 5 hours (7-12:30)

The ER by the way, is a place we don't know, quite a drive away. Hence my uncertainty about hitting some fool with a syringe full of Humulin N and a sense of heroism.
 
Glad Akbahs doing better. It sounds like you know all the drugs he was given, make a note somewhere about it for yourself and then call your reg vet/whoever did dental and tell them about Akbahs extreme response. My Carly had a dental, with other things (3 extractions/hernia repair) and didnt eat for 6 days except for what I could entice her to eat. I thought it was being under an extra long time. T

But....then she had some sedation for Xrays and then was in so much pain from her arithritis that we started pain meds right after that, and the combo of the sedation/pain meds made her not eat for 6 days again.

Now I am scared to do dentals but I do know the sedative was the same used for dental so either shes sensitive to a lot of things or it was a combo effect or just that one drug.

Its important so that all of Akbahs vets are aware of his extreme response to the combo of drugs he got.
 
I'm glad he seems to be perking up a bit.

I understand about wanting to avoid the vet if you can. My Ruby's stress blows off the charts when she goes.

Keep us posted on how he (and YOU) are doing.
 
It is quite scary when they don't seem to come out of it as quickly as we would like. I'm actually surprised that the vet released him in that condition. When my girls had dentals (yes we go to a dental specialist), she has always kept them until they come out of it and have some coherency.

As my girls are super sensitive to the drugs, we have notes in their records indicating what they were given, the amount and that they need to be carefully watched for several hours.

I'm glad that Akbah is starting to come around. Just note that it may take several more hours, even a day or two before he is back to normal.
 
He was coherent when the vet released him at 5pm. He got home, came out of his cage, ate a tiny bit, followed me around quietly.
He had a relapse at 7pm, went and laid on the bed, unresponsive but breathing, as I described.
His eyes could open by about 1:30am, but he stayed at the level where he would open his eyes if you carried him around, till about 5am, when I finally decided he probably wasn't going to get any worse and went to sleep.
I woke this morning at 11am and he's slightly better. He holds his head up now. But he won't drink water. It's now coming on 1pm and he hasn't had anything more than a few drops of water since about 6pm.
I'm going to make a separate thread to ask for tips.
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=69507
 
I read the syringe feeding thread, and I hate to nag at you, but to be honest I would still get him to the vet. This seems like a pretty extreme reaction and maybe he needs more fluids (or something, I have no idea) to get the bad stuff out of his system. I would also want some tests run to make sure there was no permanent damage from whatever he is reacting to. That's just my 2 cents.
 
The vet should be made aware of this unusual, and scary reaction. You should, at the very least, call the vet who did the dental and describe all this.
 
Do you have an electronic thermometer? Would you be able to take his temperature?
And did the vet give you meds that your cat is still taking?
 
Hello, sorry I missed these questions till now. Akbah is back to his old self today thank goodness, a bit quiet but eating out of his own bowl, then finishing Hannah's, walking around, talking, and so forth. The problem with seeing the vet till now was that I realised things were badly wrong at about 8pm, after vet closed on 24/4, and the next day 25/4 was a public holiday in Australia (Anzac Day). So today is the first day back (26/4).
I'm going past the vet on my way home to talk with him in person.
He gave an antibiotic shot which would last a week (Amoxycilin) so no meds to give Ak myself.
Didn't have a thermometer.
 
My little Nuisance did this same thing after his neuter surgery....they did the surgery at 1pm, he didn't wake up and start acting OK until after 10pm that night. It scared the bejeezus outta me! I'm SO glad to know Ak's doing well now!

HUG!
 
Well. Turns out, what I saw, the whole description of a passed out cat, was morphine rather than ketamine. Ketamine is a party drug and it worried me that Ak could have overdosed on that somehow. But the vet said, the ketamine would have worn off quickly, the morphine, slowly. The vet said, Akbah didn't want to go under, he fought to stay away, growled and strugged for conciousness, and probably dragged himself awake as quick as he could too. He said, "Akbah is a tough cat". He resisted the gas (isoflurine) which they started with, he growled. Even when the vet was putting him in his carry case to go home, Ak was hanging onto available walls. When he woke up in the vet's surgery, he probably work up on the alert, got home, and felt secure, so allowed himself to relax. At which point his exhaustion and the anaesthetics really hit him. He said all the symptoms, the inner eyelids that wouldn't open, wetting himself on the couch, everything was a normal cat under anaesthetics "sleeping it off" - specifically, morphine. I'll say he slept! :shock: :? But vetman assures me they used gentle doses of anaesthetics, and he wasn't in any danger.

I remarked quietly, that he should warn people to watch out for such stupor, as I stayed up till 5am fretting over him. He replied merely, that he didn't expect Akbah to go back to sleep, because he'd been so resistant of sleeping in the vet's. Hmmmm.

Oddly, I'm not furious with the vet anymore, which I sure was yesterday, ropeable. I must have swallowed this story. I like the vet, he is a reasonable sort of human, even if he goshdarned could have told me this could happen. Or I could have rung him at 8pm. I guess.
 
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