From Alkaline to Alarming: The Impact of Battery Ingestion
In this eye-opening episode of Vetsplanation, Dr. Sugerman delves into a topic that might surprise you: battery ingestion in pets. Our furry companions' curiosity can lead them to swallow objects they shouldn't, and batteries are a common danger lurking in our homes. Dr. Sugerman discusses the corrosive risks associated with battery ingestion, from alkaline substances causing tissue damage to potential ulcers and strictures. Learn about the signs to watch out for, the diagnostic process, and the crucial steps to take if you suspect your pet has ingested a battery. Tune in to discover the hidden dangers and preventive measures that can keep your pets safe.
What You’ll Learn:
Understand the dangers of pets ingesting batteries and the potential consequences.
Learn about the corrosive properties of alkaline substances found in batteries.
Recognize the swift and severe tissue damage caused by battery ingestion.
Explore the range of clinical signs that indicate a pet has ingested a battery.
Discover the diagnostic procedures used to locate and assess ingested batteries.
Gain insight into the urgency of immediate treatment within the first 24 hours.
Uncover the role of medications in preventing further injury and promoting healing.
Differentiate between various battery types and their unique risks to pets.
Acquire tips for preventing battery ingestion and training pets to "drop it."
Understand the importance of seeking prompt veterinary care in cases of suspicion.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"Battery dangers go beyond choking hazards; it's the corrosive substances that pose the greatest risk, causing tissue damage and ulcers." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman
"Preventing battery ingestion involves safe storage and training techniques to keep pets away from potential hazards." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman
"Battery ingestion isn't just a pet problem; it's also a concern for young children and older adults in the household." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman
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Read The Transcript:
Tyler: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I'm going to teach you about veterinary medicine. In this podcast, we can dive deeper into the understanding of what our pets are going through. and break down medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information. Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only.
This is not meant to be a diagnosis for your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things. Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine, and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options and different opinions.
The information I provide here is to help pet parents have a better understanding about their pets. If you like our podcast, please consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or just somebody else who has pets as well. Now let's jump into this week's episode.
Welcome back listeners to another interesting episode of Vetsplanation Podcast. I am your [00:01:00] host, Dr. Sugerman, and today we delve into a topic that might seem odd, but unfortunately is a common predicament in the lives of our four legged friends. We're going to be talking today about battery ingestion in animals.
So our pets, they are very curious. We have very curious cats, we have probing dogs and they love to explore. But unfortunately that exploration often includes a taste test of objects that might be lying around the house. We've all heard about pets swallowing things they shouldn't, from toys to socks and everything else in between.
You can learn more about those things on episode 34 of exploring our gastrointestinal foreign bodies in dogs and cats, but today we're going to be discussing a more dangerous scenario. When our fur babies accidentally ingest batteries, the dangers associated with battery ingestion are immense and the aftermath can be catastrophic as well.
While small batteries can pose choking [00:02:00] hazards, it's the leaky, corrosive substances that present the most significant risk. Batteries are found in almost everything in our household. The most common objects that I've had animals eat that contain batteries have been things like for the remote control for the TV and the remote controls for the kids toys.
I've also had dogs that have eaten hearing aids from older people. I think that they do like the squishiness of the buttons and the squishiness of the foam and stuff from the hearing aids. It's just a different texture than most things and they find that really interesting to explore.
So although we're really annoyed that we cannot flip the channel, on the TV and the kids are upset that they can't drive the remote control cars. We do have to worry about those pets first. So alkaline batteries, they contain something called potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide. These actually have a really high pH.
So just a reminder when we talk about pH acidic means that they have a [00:03:00] low pH and alkaline means that they have a really high pH. So ingestion of these alkaline substances, like what we see inside of a battery. that can cause something called liquefactive necrosis of the tissue, or basically it just means that it will cause the tissue to die and become liquefied. This alkaline liquid will cause ulcers or substantially burn the esophagus. So the esophagus, remember, is our food pipe, and it can also burn the stomach as well.
Some of the ulcers can be so bad that it can cause a hole to burn through the esophagus or the stomach, which can also be a huge problem. So ulcers, they can start really quickly and can be seen even after only about an hour or two after ingesting the battery. But the full extent of the injuries can take up to 24 hours to develop.
Let's talk about some of the clinical signs that you might see with battery ingestion. This can be something very [00:04:00] simple as they just don't really want to eat or they're just drooling profusely to more complex clinical signs such as difficulty breathing, vomiting, pain in their mouth or their stomach from those ulcers eating away at it, swelling of their throat so that they can't breathe, and even ulcers in their mouth.
These signs do have a lot of other differentials, so that can be really hard for us to distinguish whether this is from a battery or not. What are some of the things that we'll know that it's from a battery? First of all, when you see something that would have had a battery in it, that's chewed up, make sure to look for those batteries.
If you see that the remote control was chewed up, go looking for those batteries to see if you can find them. If you don't see any batteries on the floor, then it's better to just assume that the pet got into them than to assume that they didn't get into them. Some people may also find batteries that have a puncture holes in them from the dogs biting on them.
That's still an [00:05:00] emergency to have them brought in immediately because it's that stuff inside the battery that's corrosive. Sometimes you'll even see like a liquid, like a black material that comes out of the battery and it'll be all along the dog's mouth. That's another indication that they did get into those batteries.
Whether you know that the battery is missing or not, we want you to bring them in immediately. The first thing that we're going to want to do is take radiographs, which are also known as x rays, but the correct term is actually radiographs. We usually want to take radiographs of the neck and of the chest.
We're looking specifically at the esophagus, so that food pipe, and their trachea, the wind pipe, and then also just looking at their abdomen or their belly, essentially, to look for any signs of a battery. We can't actually see ulcers on a radiograph, so we wouldn't be able to know if there was an ulceration that was in there, but we will be looking for those batteries.
Since the batteries are metallic, [00:06:00] they're actually really easy to see on a radiograph, which is really nice for us. There are definitely other types of foreign bodies that are much more difficult to see on an x ray or on a radiograph. Batteries, super easy to see. If the battery is in like small pieces, and the pet isn't really showing clinical signs, they may be able to feed them like multiple meals with extra fiber to try to help them pass it quicker.
The batteries also contain some heavy metals in them. which rarely cause like heavy metal toxicity but if they're in the body for too long more than two to three days that is a possibility and if the battery is whole or it's leaking or it's stuck in the esophagus that food pipe then we need to use a camera to pass down into the esophagus to try to get it out that's called an endoscopy when we're putting a camera down into the throat and then Sometimes if we can't get them out that way, then we have to do a surgical procedure called a gastrotomy. That means that [00:07:00] we make an incision into the abdomen or the belly and we go into the stomach to remove that battery.
Let's talk about some of the treatments next. Treatment depends on how bad the symptoms are. We usually want to perform blood work to check to see if the pet's white blood cells are okay.
That can tell us like how bad the inflammation or infection already are. If the pet is eating and drinking and their white blood cells are within normal limits, then they can usually just be monitored at home for any symptoms for the next 24 hours. If the pet is showing clinical signs, though, we will want to start supportive care.
All the medications that we give are usually given to help prevent further injury. There's not like going to be a magic pill that we can give to make all these things go away. It's a lot of things to try to just help prevent things. So we usually give some medications to try to help just prevent the stomach and esophagus from further injury.
The most common ones are Omeprazole and Sucralfate. So [00:08:00] Omeprazole is actually known as Prilosec. You probably have seen this over the counter. It actually helps to decrease the stomach's acid that it naturally produces. We want to decrease the acid because it's just going to make our ulcerations worse.
Sucralfate is a medication that we use to help coat the stomach and esophagus. It's to help prevent some of this alkaline substance from being able to get into the tissue to cause further ulcers. IV fluids can be really beneficial for our pets too that are not really eating or drinking. So we want to keep them hydrated.
Pain control is essential because ulcers hurt. If anybody's ever had a stomach ulcer, they hurt. And this also brings up an important point, too. So if your pet is on an NSAID or a non steroidal anti inflammatory, these are usually things like Carprofen, Rimadyl, Galliprant, Metacam, Meloxicam. It's just something that's used for inflammation.
You're [00:09:00] going to want to let the veterinarian know. Because we'll probably talk about like how long we want those medications stopped for. Usually like about a week is pretty typical. We'll also want to do things to try to help provide nutritional support when they're not eating. A lot of times when they have ulcers, their mouth is so painful, they do not want to eat.
So we usually want to do things like place a tube that goes from the nostril into the esophagus or the stomach. Those are called a nasoesophageal or a nasogastric tube. It's just a way that we can bypass the mouth so we can still get nutrition into them without them being so painful trying to eat.
And then lastly, they will likely be placed on antibiotics if they do have signs of ulcers. The reason why is not because the batteries, like the battery and the alkaline material doesn't actually have bacteria in it that would cause an infection. All of the stomach's normal defenses will not be working correctly.
And we'll just like [00:10:00] all that bacteria that we eat every day, even if it's good bacteria, would become harmful to the lining of the stomach because those defenses are not working properly. Therefore, we want to prevent what's called a secondary infection, meaning that the bacteria is not the original cause, but it will like sneak in there to try to cause more havoc.
Now we've talked about the first 24 hours showing like the worst clinical signs, but in reality, we're not really out of the woods for a while. So about three to 14 days after the ulcers, The body is trying to make a scar essentially, but it can still perforate or open up and cause a hole while it's trying to make that scar.
Then after that scar is made, if everything goes well there, about four to six weeks after those initial ulcers, we can get something that's called a stricture. This usually would occur like in the esophagus because it's smaller, it's a much smaller tube [00:11:00] than our stomach is, but it makes the opening of the esophagus smaller.
Okay. Because that scar has formed, so that makes it so that the pet really can't swallow food or water effectively, and some of those pets may need to undergo surgery to decrease that stricture, or some of them might need to be fed through a tube that goes directly into the stomach, if that stricture is really bad.
Some that aren't that bad may just be need to be fed upright, so they have these standing chairs, That look like a high chair for a baby, but it's called a Bailey's chair just to make sure that the gravity helps move food through the stricture.
Let's talk about some of our common questions that are asked. The most common question that's asked of me is can we induce vomiting to get this out? The answer to this for the good of the pet would be no, we should not induce vomiting. The reason why is if that battery is really caustic going down and it causes ulcers, then it will do [00:12:00] the same thing as it's coming up.
It's going to cause those burns in the esophagus and will lead to all of these other problems we talked about, not being able to breathe, having ulcers in the esophagus, causing strictures, causing perforations into the esophagus. So ideally, we do not want to make them vomit. But I will say if somebody comes in and a pet parent does not have the funds to do surgery, I would talk to them about the risks of inducing vomit.
As in, as long as they understand those risks and if that pet does develop structures and they understand, that they may need to be humanely euthanized if this isn't going to be something that can be dealt with. And then I will make them vomit. I will still put them on all the other medications and then we see how it goes.
One important thing, though, is, people like to try to make them vomit at home. So it is really important not to give hydrogen peroxide. If you remember correctly, I said that these [00:13:00] batteries contain potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide. Hydrogen peroxide Is an alkaline as well, and you're just going to make things worse.
So don't give them hydrogen peroxide at home. Ideally, still come into a vet clinic. Even if it's that we're risking things by making them vomit. It is still some option, right? We don't want to make things worse by giving them the hydrogen peroxide.
So what can you do at home then? Really the best thing that you can do is before you come in, give them some chicken broth or some chicken noodle soup or some tuna water, not the ones in oil, like literally the tuna and water to help coat their mouth and their esophagus and their stomach so that it can stop all of those ulcerations and then get them down to the vet immediately, at least that gives you time to get your shoes on, get your keys, and the dog's leash, or the cat's carrier, and then get them down to the vet immediately.
A [00:14:00] common question I also get asked about is about disk batteries. These are actually becoming really popular that we see them all a lot more now. These disk batteries are typically found in like watches or garage door openers or hearing aids.
So people ask if they actually need to be worried about them because they're pretty small, right? But the answer to that is yes, even those batteries can cause harm. So depending on the size, some of them can get stuck in the esophagus of our little dogs and cats. For bigger dogs, if these disk batteries are small enough, they can actually aspirate them, meaning that it goes down into the windpipe or the trachea, not the esophagus.
So they inhale it essentially into their trachea or trying to get it into their lungs. They also have the same caustic substances in them if they're chewed on so it will still cause the same problem as regular batteries. One also interesting thing about these batteries is that they can still emit these like little [00:15:00] electrical charges or electrical current.
So it can still burn the esophagus when it's in there. It could still burn the stomach and it can still burn the small intestines just being in there. So all of these, because it has like its own electrical currents. Lithium batteries are even more dangerous because they can cause ulcers within like 15 to 30 minutes of ingestion.
That does not give us a lot of time. That gives you enough time to get your pet down to the clinic. Assuming you live within 30 minutes of the clinic. We then have to take x rays or radiographs. We then have to sedate the pet. We then have to get the endoscopy ready. We then have to get them into endoscopy.
That is not a lot of time. We do not have 30 minutes to do all of those things. This can be, these can be really dangerous. So also, if you think that this is a problem in animals, I'm just going to point this out. It's not true. There was a paper that was published in 2022 that I thought was really interesting.
It's called disk battery [00:16:00] ingestion, and it stated that of the 56,535 batteries ingested or button batteries ingested by humans over a 19 year period, 68.1% of them were ingested by children younger than six years old. Okay, I could definitely see that, right? Kids put everything in their mouth. I could for sure see them doing that.
Now 20.3% were ingested by kids six to 19 years old. And wait, 19 year olds think that ingesting a battery was a good idea? I don't know if this was on a dare or something, but they're in that statistic. Okay, then if you're calculating these percentages too, like I usually do you'll realize that we're missing some here.
Well, 10% of these button batteries goes to patients who are 60 to 89 years old. So as you can see, this is not just a problem with animals, meaning that if the batteries go missing from something, it may not always be the dog or cat that ingested it. [00:17:00] You need to think about everybody else who's in the house as well.
Alright, another common question that I get is about charcoal. Can charcoal be given to help absorb all of this alkaline material? So the answer is no. This alkaline material, it works on the esophagus and it works on the stomach. It's not really absorbed. So the activated charcoal just wouldn't work. So don't give any activated charcoal at home because it's just going to make them a little neurological in some situations because that's what charcoal can do if you give too much, so I would not give the charcoal. It's not going to work.
And then lastly, I'm going to talk about how we prevent this. This probably seems obvious, right? But, just put stuff away. Put stuff away where pets can't get to them.
Because... We just want to try to keep them away from all of those things that could potentially get batteries into them. And I know how hard this is, especially with kids. They just leave everything everywhere, really. Really all I can say to this is [00:18:00] that if you suspect they ate a battery, the faster you get them in the better.
We're more likely to avoid these bigger problems if we can get it out quickly. Some of the other things to help prevent this would be things like crate training your pet, so they can't get into things when you're not home. They can't get into the remote or all these fun, chewy things that they'd like to, to get the batteries out of.
Second thing is to try to teach them to leave it or drop it. So if you train them to drop an object for a better treat that you give them, then they're less likely to swallow that object when you try to take it away from them. It's a very common thing that I hear is that people try to take the object from the pet, the pet doesn't want to give it up, and they immediately just swallow it.
And then now they've seen it, swallow it, and now they have to get them in. So instead, training your dog to like drop things. The best way to do that with trainers, they'll say is to get a really good treat. Something that you only use for this. And that as soon as you want something, you want to just train [00:19:00] them.
You give them an object, like a, a stuffed animal or something. And then when you want that object back, you teach them to drop it. And when they give it to you, then you give them. The better treat. It's teaching them that when you ask them to do something, you're going to give them something better.
So you want to teach them how to drop it. So that way you don't have to worry about trying to take it out of their mouth. They'll drop it to get a better treat. All right. I know this is like so much information that I've done. I know that I always give a lot of information. So I'm going to do like a two minute synopsis.
So that way, hopefully, it's not so hard to absorb all these things. So basically. If you feel like your pet has ingested or punctured a battery. You'll give them some chicken broth, chicken noodle soup, tuna, or tuna water while you're grabbing your keys, wallet, leash, pet carrier, and get them into the vet right away.
We're going to perform radiographs to see [00:20:00] if the battery's in there. And if there is a battery, then we will likely need to use a scope to remove it or go into surgery to remove it as soon as possible. Then afterwards, we'll need to treat them with medications to help prevent any further ulcers from occurring. So we're basically treating any symptoms that they're already having.
And there you have it folks. That's the dark side of this innocent animal curiosity and the measures we have to take to ensure our homes are safe for our pets. So I'm going to do our fun little animal fact. Today we're going to be talking about flamingos.
So now most people think of flamingos like about how they get their pink color from what they eat, right? They, somebody tells you that they eat krill and therefore they're pink. But do you know like how that happens? Or more interestingly for me, how they eat is what I think is interesting. So real quick about why they're pink.
So plants, when you think about plants, they have a lot of natural reds and oranges and yellow colors. [00:21:00] Those are produced from pigments called carotenoids. Think of like things like an orange carrot or a ripe red tomato, for example, those have a lot of carotenoids. These carotenoids are also found in other things.
They're found in algae, for example. And the brine shrimp that the flamingos eat, eat algae. So the brine shrimp eat the algae, and flamingos love brine shrimp the brine shrimp metabolizes these pigments, these carotenoid pigments, from the algae. And then the flamingo metabolizes the pigments from the brine shrimp and the algae.
So the way that their liver kind of breaks down these carotenoids, it turns the flamingo's feathers pink and orange. So that's how they get their color. So now let's talk about why I actually picked flamingos for this. So if you could imagine what your dog is doing, destroying your remote when you're gone, right?
They're like putting their head down like ferociously shaking it back and forth. Just like [00:22:00] trying to bite down on it and get into it. So I don't know if you've ever seen a flamingo eat, but when it's time to dine. They put their head upside down in the water so that their bill is like facing their feet. But then they sweep their head from like side to side. So they're just like put their head down. Let's do this way.
Put their head down and then they sweep it from like side to side. So that way they can. Use their tongue to pump a lot of water in and out of their bill. Now, if you can remember like what the baleen whales look like, they have all of that baleen inside their mouth.
So they have a really similar thing. They have this comb like plates in their bill that are very similar to that, and it helps trap all the food inside their mouth. So generally they eat algae and brine shrimp, like we just discussed, but they also eat things like small seeds, and fly larva, and any other plants and animals that live in those shallow waters.
So I imagine these flamingos shaking their head like [00:23:00] the dogs do with the remotes in their mouth. That made me think of them. And I hope you learned something new about flamingos today, but stay tuned next week for Vetsplanation podcast, where we unravel the intriguing aspects of the animal worlds.
And until then, keep your pets happy, safe, and loved. Thank you guys.
Thank you guys for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or you just want to say hi, you can email me at Suggs, S U G G S @ Vetsplanationpodcast.com or visit the website at Vetsplanationpodcast.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you back here next week.