What to Do If Your Cat Eats Onions

1 Symptoms and Toxic Dose

Early symptoms: vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, poor appetite, abdominal pain. Long-term symptoms: dizziness, easy fatigue, pale tongue, rapid breathing, generally the anemia-related signs appear days later; right after eating, only food-poisoning-like symptoms show. Severity: high, can be life-threatening. Category: metabolic disease. Frequency: cats, low; dogs, common. Keywords: fatigue and lethargy, poor appetite, dizziness and belly pain with diarrhea, vomiting, rapid breathing.

About onion poisoning in pets. Alliums like onion, scallion, garlic, and chives contain sulfides that can destroy red blood cells in the blood when a cat or dog eats them.

Eating food cooked with onion, such as onion soup or curry, can also cause onion poisoning.

The toxic amount is roughly 15 to 30 g per kg of body weight for dogs and about 5 g per kg for cats. There is individual variation, so never assume a small amount is harmless.

2 Diagnosis and Treatment

Diagnosis: usually reached through a history interview, and a blood test is done to confirm anemia.

Treatment: it can be cured. 1. Induced vomiting. Within 1 to 2 hours of eating, poison likely remains in the stomach, so take the cat to a vet promptly for induced vomiting. Note that vomiting does not always work, and even if some poison is expelled most may already be absorbed; the vomit can also burn the esophagus and cause esophagitis.

Some online rumors claim you can induce vomiting at home with large amounts of salt. If salt-vomiting fails, it can cause salt poisoning and even threaten life. Do not believe such rumors.

2. Stomach lavage. If a large amount was eaten, lavage is used rather than just induced vomiting, though this is less common. 3. Mucosal protectants or adsorbents. A protectant forms a film over the gut; activated charcoal adsorbs toxin and reduces absorption. 4. IV fluids lower toxin levels in the blood. 5. Forced diuresis uses diuretics to raise urine output and flush more toxin out; it burdens the kidneys, so avoid it if kidney function is poor.

Symptomatic care: treat whatever symptoms appear over time. For anemia, give blood-building medicine or a transfusion; for vomiting, an anti-vomiting drug; for diarrhea, an anti-diarrheal, and so on.

Outlook: with proper treatment the risk is low, but if a large amount was eaten or treatment is delayed, other illnesses may complicate and reduce the chance of recovery.