Bad Reaction to Pre-Anesthetic

[cooper22]

One week ago I took River in to get him neutered (he is almost 2 years old). He has had blood work done recently and a routine EKG revealed nothing (he is from fully health tested parents - holter, thyroid, SAS, etc. . . ). I dropped him off around 7:30 am and around 11 am the vet calls and says River is having what appears to be a severe reaction to the Buprenorphine that was administered before the surgery. His heart rate is over 200 and his temp is 105 - He is unable to stand up and appears to be having what might be considered a seizure. He is holding his front leg up when he sits up. I was flabergasted at this point. Obviously they didn't neuter him that day and kept him on fluids overnight and the affects appeared to wear off overnight although he had shifting leg lameness until about 3 days after. They also did give him an injection to reverse the drug, but the reversal is on backorder (forever) so the drug they gave him was expired (I knew at the time and consented to at least try it).

He is now back to 100% normal, but I am still unsure (as is the vet) as to what happened. I would still like to get him neutered, but I am not sure what to do now. I was very clear with the vet that no Ace was to be used and he immediately agreed and said they never use Ace on boxers so I am pretty sure that is not the culprit. Has anyone had this happen before? I googled the drug, but it appears to have a very good safety record.

 

[whiskers]

It sounds like malignant hyperthermia, but I don't think it usually occurs that quickly (if this was his pre-anesthetic, it probably hadn't been on board very long) and I don't think buprenorphine is a drug that causes it. Are there are other drugs he got with the bupe - how do they know that's what caused it (just wondering, usually premeds are a cocktail of like 2 or 3 drugs)?

We had it happen to a cat after his surgery. He was just having an odd time waking up and seemed extra loopy and disoriented, then began panting, and lo and behold his temp was like 104 degrees. We suspected though that his reaction was caused by either the ketamine or the isoflurane gas. It's just something that we have noted in his chart should he ever need another surgery. Unfortunately we can't really avoid the iso gas if that's the culprit, but probably likely that we wouldn't use ketamine on him in the future.

I know it's hard but I wouldn't stress over it much, just definitely wouldn't use bupe on him again. Luckily there are all sorts of drugs that can be used for anesthesia, so it should be easy to avoid

 

[sonrae]

We had something similar happen to our dog a week ago but this was post surgery. He had a big op and all appeared well when we took him home but 2 days after he started having head tremors (up to 10 in one day!) We of course took him back to the vet who didn't really know what was causing it. Wilf also would breathe very fast at rest. What I believe is that when the pain relief patch (fentanyl) was wearing off it caused a reaction as no pain relief was given after and maybe he went into shock or just reacted badly to the drug. I wouldn't want him on fentanyl again. The vet was worried too and took bloods from him which were all normal. The tremors lasted 4 days and then he was back to his normal self. He worried us a lot but hopefully it was nothing more serious than a reaction to the drugs.
Maybe your vet could use a different pre med and see if he is OK. It is a worry though, but I hope it works out for you.

 

[Cami]

Glad to hear that he is doing better now.

PLEASE, don't let the fact that he comes from health tested parents allow you to let your guard down.
Cleared parents does not guarantee clear offspring.