Well, just spoken to OH who's travelling at the moment, it seems the vet just rang him to give an update (crossed wires somewhere).
Apparently Kipper's heart rate is still very high and the vet's not happy with it - she was hoping that restoring potassium levels would have solved this on it's own but is now giving him beta blockers too to try and calm it all down. She's worried, but has spoken to the poisons helpline again and apparently given all the observations and management so far they'd be expecting to see a real improvement 10-12 hrs after ingestion, so 8-10pm tonight. There's a vet on site all night with a nurse, and they'll keep monitoring his progress. She said she'll ring at 9 tomorrow morning to update us, and if there's any deterioration before then they'll call us immediately. Lawks allummee
So it was an ingredient in the inhaler that caused all of this?
Yes, it was turbutaline sulfate; older 'reliever' inhalers contain salbutamol which I'd heard of as a serious poison in dogs, but I didn't know about turbutaline sulfate. It's a beta-adrenergic receptor agonist which basically relaxes the tiny airways of the lungs, but in smaller creatures and larger doses can have severe side effects, one of the biggies being massively reduced potassium levels which in turn can cause heart failure suprisingly quickly. Worth emphasising for any asthmatic friends and visitors.
