Lead poisoning was widespread back in the 1970s. Many houses in the United States of America were covered with paint that contained vast amounts of lead. This was dangerous for humans as well as animals.
When the government saw the dangerous effects of lead, it brought regulations that removed lead from any house paint. From then on, there have been fewer and fewer lead poisoning cases.
Still, there are some other ways for animals, especially dogs, to get exposed to lead. Dogs can get poisoning from old paint during renovation, golf balls, fishing sinkers, some materials such as putty, lead pipes, solder, batteries, shotgun pellets, and toys for kids.
All of the above contain a dangerous amount of lead, and it is not uncommon for dogs to get in touch with any of these things.
What Is Lead Poisoning?
Lead can be found in the water, air, dust, or any food product we consume. It is a dangerous metal that causes intoxication and affects the brain and the stomach primarily.
The poisoning from lead is otherwise known as saturnism or plumbism. It manifests with headaches, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, memory problems, tingling and numbness in the extremities, infertility, etc. It is not unusual for people with poisoning to manifest neurological symptoms and show an aggressive and sudden change in their expected behavior.
If the intoxication is extended, the poisoning can have dangerous effects such as seizures, coma, and even death.
Children and young animals are always at greater risk; hence they are more prone to putting things in their mouths. Lead poisoning can be discovered by measuring the amount of lead in the blood.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there is an upper limit for blood lead levels. The limit is ten µg/dl for adults, and for kids, it is 3.5 µg/dl.
Though you can remove every possible lead source in and out of your home, you can never be 100% sure that you and your close ones are safe from poisoning. Still, if you put an effort and remove all objects at risk of containing lead and improve the ventilation in your home and workspace, you can decrease the chances of getting poisoned by lead.
Many regulations prohibit the usage of lead in some products, such as gasoline, lead-based paint, wheel weights, ammunition, etc.
The treatment for this kind of poisoning involves chelation therapy. Some of the medications that help reduce the amount of lead in the blood are dimercaprol and succimer.
Six years ago, it was estimated that this type of poisoning had taken more than 500,000 lives worldwide. Most of them were people working in the developing world.
Definition
It occurs when a dog’s body is exposed to lead over an extended period.
The poisoning can also happen when a dog eats or inhales lead. Lead is a very threatening heavy metal that consumes calcium and zinc in the body, little by little. After some time, the lead will absorb and attack the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system.
At that moment, the body is affected by mineral exhaustion and starts showing severe symptoms. By substituting two essential minerals for normal body function, lead creates awful damage to the cells.
If a dog is exposed to lead metal, it can show symptoms immediately or after a while.
Cases of animals with poisoning with lead are more common during the summer. Also, the poisoning is usually represented in poor neighborhoods. Specific geographical locations have an effect as well. (*)
The condition is often characterized by damage in the gastrointestinal and neurological states. Lead poisoning causes hematologic abnormalities, infertility, renal failure, and immunosuppression.
The lead quickly enters the body and attacks blood cells and soft tissue. Eventually, it spreads to the bones and creates dysfunction in the body by showing different symptoms. The gravity of the symptoms depends on the dose and the exposure period.
Young dogs and puppies are more prone to this type of poisoning; their bodies absorb more lead in a shorter period. While an older dog can absorb up to 15% of the information in the body, a puppy can absorb up to 50%.
The poisoning also upsets a lot of people worldwide. Veterinarians often see this type of intoxication in dogs and cats. Sometimes it ends fatal, and young animals are the most endangered.
Cause of Lead Poisoning
Most commonly, lead can be found in paint chips, ceramic dishes, gun pellets, linoleum tile, wine bottle foil, lead lubricants, lead caulking, leaded gasoline, used car oil, curtain weights, paint dust, contaminated water, or fishing weight. Many dogs get in touch with lead through linoleum, rug padding, roof, and other household materials used, primarily during house renovations.
Young pups are perky and curious; they want to see everything, smell anything and eat whatever they can find. If you are a dog parent, make sure you examine your house for lead existence.
Puppies can get poisoned with lead from ingestion of car batteries, toys, plumbing and roof materials, lubricating materials, paint chips, etc. They can also get intoxicated by eating lead-contaminated food or drinking lead-contaminated water.
The Effect Of The Lead Poisoning
Lead is a very poisonous metal found in small quantities in the core of the planet Earth. Lead is very toxic and causes severe health problems in animals and people.
It is especially threatening to young animals or kids. Lead is often found in paint, herbal medicines, toys, candies, stained glass, crystal or ceramic ware, etc. Before the 1980ies, lead was used in house paint, and it was inside everyone’s home. As we all know, paint can easily crack and peel from the walls, releasing little lead dust particles in the air.
Also, if you are redesigning your home that has lead-based painted walls, you are probably releasing lead dust all over. The most dangerous thing is that lead dust sticks to the surfaces for a long time. You or your family members can very quickly get exposed to lead by touching objects that contain information and putting the hand near the mouth.
At the time, the authorities realized that most of the lead toxicity cases came from house paint. Therefore, they banned lead-based paint. Still, this type of poisoning remains a substantial public health issue where old homes are located.
How Does It Manifest?
There are a lot of clinical signs and symptoms that your dog may manifest that can mean that it is suffering from the poisoning. Every symptom related to the gastrointestinal tract or the central nervous system is possible that your dog has been intoxicated with lead.
These are the most typical symptoms of lead poisoning: pain in the abdomen, vomiting, decreased appetite, diarrhea, weakness in the body, regurgitation, increased thirst, increased urination, lethargy, anxiety, hysteria, shortness of breath, muscle tremors, aggressive behavior, circling, incoordination.
If the case is more severe, the dog may go blind, deaf, and even show seizures.
The symptoms can develop over weeks or even months. Someone with poisoning may not even show symptoms or subtle and nonspecific signs. If the body gets exposed to organic lead, the severity of the symptoms will be enormous, and the lead will affect the central nervous system.
On the contrary, if the intoxication came from inorganic lead, it will show less severe symptoms.
The exposure to lead can be chronic, meaning it was happening for an extended period, or acute, a brief but intense lead exposure. In people, this type of poisoning shows the same symptoms. Adults will start feeling headaches, stomach pain, kidney failure, reproductive problems, memory loss, a sense of goose pimples, and weakness.
The earliest symptoms are depression, nausea, loss of appetite, diarrhea, pain, malaise, fatigue, sleep problems, and constipation. Also, specific clinical signs indicate to this poisoning, which is easier to detect: drastic personality changes and a strange taste in the mouth.
The symptoms in adults appear when the blood lead concentrations are more than forty μg/dL and in children, above sixty μg/dL.
When the lead levels are between twenty and sixty, the patient may show neurological symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, slow motoric functions, delayed reaction, headaches, and irritability. If the levels are higher than fifty μg/dL, the patient will show anemia.
There is a slight difference in acute and chronic lead poisoning symptoms. Acute poisoning from lead manifests with muscle pain and weakness, tingling feeling, numbness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss, constipation, and not that often brain inflammation. Also, when someone suffers from the poisoning, they will feel a strange, metallic taste in the mouth.
If the body absorbs amounts of lead in a brief period, as happens with acute poisoning with lead, it will cause hemoglobin, reduced urine output, and anemia.
Chronic poisoning happens over a long period. If your body is exposed to lead for a couple of months, you will feel many neurological and gastrointestinal symptoms. Chronic poisoning also shows memory loss, depression, nausea, pain in the abdomen, coordination loss, and a feeling of numbness and tingling.
Also, people exposed to lead for an extended time will have trouble sleeping, constant headaches, slurred speech, and stupor. A particular sign of chronic poisoning is the lead hue. If someone were intoxicated, it would show a pallor skin and a blue line on the gums.
The teeth may have a black edge, an evident sign of the poisoning. Also, aggressive and hyperkinetic behavior and vision disturbance lead to intoxication.
Diagnosis Lead Poisoning
If you see any of the marks mentioned above and feel your dog may be poisoned by lead, you should call a veterinarian immediately. Unfortunately, there is no home remedy for lead intoxication.
Before going to the vet, remember your dog’s medical history. This is essential in this type of situation. The dog’s medical history will assist the vet in making an accurate diagnosis of when the lead toxicity started. Also, think about where the dog could have gotten in contact with lead.
The vet should immediately do a complete physical exam and a lot of laboratory tests to determine the extent of the intoxication. If the dog suffers from lead poisoning, its red blood cells should be decreased, and the white cells should be increased. Also, abnormal shapes, colors, and sizes of red cells will be present when seen under the microscope.
Lead poisoning often manifests with increased or abnormal amounts of glucose in the urine. All these changes can be accompanied by elevated liver enzymes, which means that kidney function is also attacked. It can also be detected on radiographs as well. A picture of the chest area and the abdomen may show the existence of lead objects. (*)
To diagnose this type of poisoning, the amount of lead in the complete blood count should be more than 0.35 ppm, and in the liver and the kidney, more than ten ppm. This, of course, depends on the country. Many countries require the blood lead concentrations to be more than 0.05 ppm to be diagnosed with the poisoning.
What Is The Treatment?
With every lead poisoning in dogs, the goal is to identify and eliminate the source of intoxication. Afterward, treat the dog with therapy to remove the lead from its body. Though the effects of the poisoning are not reversible, you can remove the source and significantly reduce the lead levels in the blood.
If your dog is diagnosed with poisoning from lead, the first step in its treatment is to remove the lead from the body. For this step, gastric lavage is performed. This procedure removes all the stomach content, and it is especially effective if the lead was indigested a few hours before.
The lavage is cleaning the intestines with water and rinsing it a couple of times. If the lower GI tract is involved, an enema can be used. If there are any lead objects inside the body, the dog may require surgery.
The second step of the treatment involves chelation therapy. The chelation is used to tie up one substance to another. The chelation structure ties up with the lead particles, and the lead can no longer affect the body as a toxin. Once the particles are tied up, they are removed from the body through the kidneys.
The dog receives chelation agents orally, for example, thiamine, penicillamine, or CA-EDTA. After receiving them, these agents travel through the GI tract and the red blood cells to catch all the lead in the system.
The final step is the medication. A dog poisoned with lead should receive a lot of IV fluids to help with the dehydration. Many intoxicated dogs show symptoms like diarrhea and vomiting, which can lead to severe dehydration. Therefore, it is necessary to keep pumping the organism with fluids.
If the lead poisoning has provoked severe symptoms like seizures, the vet may add some valium to the fluids to act as an anticonvulsant.
If the poisoning is identified early, the treatment will have a higher success rate. The amount of lead exposure also conditions a successful treatment outcome. The higher the exposure, the more difficult it will be for the dog to recover.
Pups with low lead exposure, treated quickly after being intoxicated, can recover within two days. However, if a dog is exposed to higher doses of lead and for a much longer time, it will show severe symptoms and must be hospitalized for a couple of days.
Recovery
Once your pup is up and running, the veterinarian may schedule a follow-up to see if the symptoms are withdrawn. If a pup has suffered a mild exposure to lead, it will recover quickly; within one or two days. Though, dogs that suffer more prolonged lead exposure will show severe symptoms and might even suffer from neurological damage.
Also, dogs that have been exposed to lead over a more extended period will have lead reservoirs stockpiled in their bones. If the lead is stored in the body, it cannot be treated with chelation. These are complicated cases of lead poisoning in dogs that require continuous treatment.
You should follow the veterinarian’s recommendations and instructions to continue to care for your pup at home. If the health starts to deteriorate after you bring your dog home, you must quickly report the changes to the vet.
An essential thing to remember is to remove every possible lead source in your home or backyard. Living with lead in your environment can be a safety hazard; you, your kids, and other family members can get intoxicated quickly. This is why you must remove everything that is a possible source of lead poisoning in dogs.
Every poisoning from lead is treated as a public health hazard. For this reason, your vet will be bound to report the case to the police. The authorities recognize the danger of lead toxicity, and it is crucial to know if there is a possible source that can intoxicate many people or animals.
The ultimate thing you need to know about treating lead-poisoned dogs is that it’s expensive. If you ever require this type of treatment, make sure you have valid pet insurance.
Can You Prevent It?
It can be difficult to prevent your dog from lead poisoning. In most cases, people don’t even realize that they have a lead source in their homes. Dogs are active animals; they run, play, sniff, and eat many things. It is impossible to always keep an eye on them.
The only thing you can do to prevent it is to remove all items from your home that can contain lead, such as old lead-based paint chips or paint dust, roof materials, soldering materials, dishes, ceramics, rug padding, linoleum, lead fishing weights, gun pellets, lubricants, lead pipes, auto batteries, gasoline, used car oil, wine bottle foil, etc.
FAQs
Can Lead Poisoning in Dogs Be Cured?
You can reduce the lead levels in the blood and remove any lead sources from your surroundings, but the effects are not reversible.
What Are The Symptoms Of Lead Paint Poisoning?
There are a lot of symptoms that show that a dog is intoxicated with lead. However, it is easy to mystify them with something else since they are very similar to other disease symptoms.
Someone that suffers from lead poisoning with lead will start losing weight, start vomiting, having diarrhea, feeling difficulties in their mental and physical abilities, feeling sluggish and tired, having a lot of headaches and abdominal pain, etc.
Can Dogs Get Lead From Food and Water? What Will Happen If They Get Poisoned?
It is possible that dogs, cats, and any other animals get lead from water or food. This can happen if the water of the food is somehow contaminated with lead. Lead is a dangerous metal that can live in the water, air, and food and appears in the form of lead dust.
Though it is uncommon, dogs can get lead from water and food. If they get poisoned, they will start showing symptoms like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, pain, behavior changes, tremors, ataxia, and seizures.
What Is The Antidote For Dogs Lead Poisoning?
The truth is that it does not exist as an antidote for lead poisoning. Treatment consists of removing the source and reducing the level of lead in the body.
How Quickly Does Lead Poisoning Occur?
It isn’t easy to specify because it depends on many things. It can take months, years, or just a couple of days. It depends on the extent of exposure and the organism. Everybody reacts differently to lead poisoning, dogs may not even show any symptoms.
Lead poisoning can be acute or chronic. Acute lead poisoning is when someone is exposed to enormous amounts of lead in a short time. Though, this is the rarest type of poisoning.
People and animals more often show chronic intoxication, meaning they are exposed to small doses of lead over an extended period, whether at home or work.
How Quickly Does Lead Leave The Body?
When a lead enters the body, it travels to all organs, kidneys, liver, brain, lungs, heart, etc. The lead can live up to one month in the blood cells, around two months in the soft tissue, and many years in the bones.
Related topic: Entropion in dogs
*photo by Krakenimages.com – depositphotos