Poisonous plants... Any DETAILS?

[kehorner]

I did call my own vet... By way of the tech that I know, who also happens to be a friend.

And he vomited it all up. Absolutely everything. Without any sign of digestion. It wasn't mushy or anything. As in, just eaten. I had called my roommate and found out that she had just left it there 15 minutes before, so he didn't have that much time alone with the thing. (By the way, I did save it all in case we did end up having to go to the vet.)

And she didn't say that they weren't poisonous, nor did she say that they weren't dangerous. She just said that in this particular case, it sounded like he was going to be okay. (I suppose it's possible that I misunderstood what she said and that she didn't mean to imply that in general they aren't highly toxic, just that in this case, it didn't sound like it was that bad.) Of course, I was also watching him like a hawk for the next 18 hours, woke up several times in the night to check on him, and have been making sure he is eating, drinking, and peeing normally. And she also told me to make sure that if anything looked off to call her right away to get him in. And she called the next morning to follow up.

The reasoning behind this course of action was that the vet's treatment would be to induce vomiting (already done), and to monitor the cat, with the ability to give fluids if he stopped drinking. But since he'd already vomited it all up (I matched the vomited pieces of leaves onto the three chewed leaves of the plant to make sure that he did indeed get it all up), and he was still showing interest in food and water, it was decided that there was no need to stress him unnecessarily by rushing him to the vet. He gets so upset with travelling, that taking him to the vet would probably induce signs of illness even if there wasn't any illness (he would certainly lose interest in food and water!).

So, I suppose some might disagree with this course of action, but that's why I specified that it's important to call your vet and get details regarding a specific course of action that's right for your pet and your situation. Had he been alone with the plant for longer than the 10 minutes or so that he had been, and had he not promptly thrown up every single trace of it, he definitely would have gone immediately to the vet.

[Cleo]

Thanks for explaining it further. I'm glad, no doubt you are even more, that he's okay and nothing bad came of it.

Of course we know how much you love your cat; I just wanted to make sure you weren't given the wrong information.

[MJ]

Thanks for that link, mama. It at least gave me a little more information. :P

[mamaof4soon]

No problem glad it helped your curiosity.

It's good to know though

[MJ]

Speaking of curiosity...

Now if you were asking about landscape plants....I could tell you in a heartbeat because my degree is in horticulture and landscape design and I prefer to use native plants

Actually, I would be interested in that. It's always possible for some clippings of an outdoor plant to end up indoors, or for a cat to get out and munch something, or any number of other things... So it certainly wouldn't hurt to know. :P

[Ferrana]

A birthday bouquet given to me by a delightful student wound up costing us $1,000. Why? Lilies. *sigh*

We had NO idea lilies were toxic to cats. We knew philodendron and poinsettias were, but not lilies. It nearly killed Mija...she wound up with acute kidney failure and was on IVs for a week.

That's what brought me here in the first place. I can say with certainty that the links here on poisonous plants are very informative and very useful!