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Is the dosage of .75 mg ok for a 27 1/2 12 year old shelty that just recently had a major surgery?
Optional Information: Type of Animal: Shelty Pet's Gender: Male Pet's Age: >12
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What medication are you referring to?
Was this prescribed by your vet?
How recent was the surgery?
Was preop bloodwork done?
Were any problems found with the bloodwork?
Hydromorphone. The 27 3/4 pound shelty had major surgery 3 days ago to remove a mammory tumor and a large hemangioma on her left abdominal area. The vet gave her some hydromorphone for the surgery and I ask her how much and she said .65 mg. When we took the shelty back today ( 3 days after surgery) because she couldn't keep tramadol down, a different vet gave her .75mg of hydromorphone and she died 4 hours later at our home and it appears to me from a drug overdose.( I am a retired dentist that administered IV sedation for tooth extraction.) I ask the first vet why she selected .65 mg for the more serious surgery, she said I am conservative and if I error it is on the weaker side. With the surygery they monitor the oxygen and breathing for the pet so if there is a overdose they can handle it but to give this .75 without any montoring and knowing the pet has been under stess from the surgery it doesn't seem the proper treatment or dosage.
CustomerHydromorphone is a controlled substance and I can't comment on the dosage for this drug. I'm not comfortable answering this type of question so I'm going to opt out and see if another expert wishes to answer this for you.
I haven't received any response from another expert
HiCustomer
As you know, Hydromorphone is a synthetic derivative of morphine and as such is dosed very much like morphine.
According to my Plumb's Veterinary Drug Handbook, dogs are dosed at 0.1 to 0.25 mg/kg intramuscular or subcutaneous every 3 to 4 hours PRN. The oral dose of morphine in dogs is 1.5 to 3 mg/kg every 12 hours.
Based on these calculations, it would seem that your approximately 13kg dog did not get an overdose of the medication.
That being said, hydromorphone is known to cause a decrease in blood pressure, heart rate and respirations, so it wouldn't be hard to imagine that your little dog could have suffered some sort of cardiac or respiratory arrest from the second dose she got.
I am very, very sorry for your loss.
Experience: AAS Vet Tech. Bully breed rehab & Behavior modification