Watch your Nasal Spray!

lilspaz68 · Mar 28, 2012

A member on another forum had her 2 rats get into her nasal spray and they were both very ill and incapacitated. One of them died and the other is coming out of it now.

This is the brand

The inactive ingredients are;

benzalkonium chloride solution, benzyl alcohol, carboxymethylcellulose sodium, edetate disodium, microcrystalline cellulose, polyethylene glycol, povidone, purified water, sodium phosphate dibasic, sodium phosphate monobasic

the active ingredient is
Oxymetazoline HCl 0.05% (non-prescription)

and this is from the MSDS sheet on it

Toxicological Data on Ingredients: Oxymetazoline Hydrochloride: ORAL (LD50): Acute: 0.68mg/kg [Rat]

temblabamomo · Mar 28, 2012

Those poor babies...I hope the other one will pull out of it okay.

Thanks for the reminder about keeping medications well out of reach of rats. Just because it's in a sealed, capped, or otherwise closed container doesn't mean your rat can't get into it and possibly be harmed.

handmeafish · Mar 28, 2012

It also might be handy to keep the ASPCA poison control number handy. I don't know about Canada, but the number in America is 1(800)548-2423
I had one of my rats eat some steroid creme, and called the number. They were very helpful, and he was ok.

Godmother · Mar 28, 2012

How sad! It's a reminder to be very careful. Poor sweeties are so curious and will chew anything.

jorats · Mar 29, 2012

They chewed through the bottle. Wow, that's scary.

lilspaz68 · Mar 29, 2012

It probably fell on the floor. Its not even prescription but on the back it says if a child ingests it to contact Poison Control immediately.

Here is the story

I was in the other room working and let the rats in my room to play with my girlfriend. I came in a half an hour later and found my bottle of nasal spray chewed up on the ground with 4 holes. Found both my rats laying paralyzed. I woke up my girlfriend in a panic and told them to put them in the tub with blankets so I could observe them. The youngest one snapped out of it but my older one (8 months) is I'm very bad shape. She keeps slipping in and out and tries to eat and drink but can't and her tongue is out. I don't know what to do and all the emergency vets have no clue

Just went in again to see how she is doing. She is sleeping, and breathing quite heavily. I'm pretty upset with myself, I can't believe i left that bottle there. She was our first rat and very well mannered. The other rat is doing fine, She obviously didn't drink as much.

She died 6 hours later. :sad3: