1. Contact your veterinarian immediately for further advice.
  2. Depending on the dose your pet has been exposed to, you may be instructed to induce vomiting in your pet. Veterinary care may involve inducing vomiting if ingestion occurred within two hours and if your pet is well enough.
  3. Stomach pumping may also be performed to evacuate the contents in your pet’s stomach to get rid of any remaining drugs in its system. Multiple doses of activated charcoal would also be given to absorb any more circulating drugs in the system. Other supportive care and symptomatic treatment and monitoring can be done by your vet.
  4. Bring the drug your pet has ingested, with its package insert and/or label for confirmation of the specific drug involved and calculation of dose ingested to give the vet an idea of the severity of toxicity and treatment plan.

OTHER NAMES

Gabapentinum; 1-(aminomethyl)cyclohexane acetic acid; Other brand names (eg. Neurontin®)

TOXICITY

MILD

CLINICAL SIGNS

  • Mild sedation
  • Mild incoordination and unsteady gait (ataxia)

EFFECTS OF TOXICITY

  • Gabapentin effects a number of different receptors and ion channels in the body. Gabapentin is well tolerated in general. There have not been published reports of fatal toxicity associated with gabapentin overdose in companion animals.
  • Gabapentin is excreted by the kidneys, so animals with kidney disease are more susceptible to effects of overdose.

REFERENCES

BSAVA (2011) BSAVA Small Animal Formulary 7th Edn. Ramsey I (ed.) Gloucester: BSAVA

Petrere JA & Anderson JA (1994) Developmental Toxicity Studies in Mice, Rats and Rabbits with the Anticonvulsant Gabapentin. Fundamental and applied toxicology 23: 585-589

Zand L, McKian KP & Qian Q (2010) Gabepentin Toxicity in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease: A preventable cause of morbidity. The American Journal of Medicine. 123(4): 367-373

Rose MA & Kam PCA (2002) Gabapentin: pharmacology and its uses in pain management. Anaesthesia 57:451-462

Kukkar A, Bali A, Singh N & Jaggi AS (2013) Implications and mechanism of action of gabapentin in neuropathic pain. Archives of Parmacal Research 36(3): 237-251