[Gpdd] [Health] Emergency! Tea Tree Oil Ingestion

[Cazza177]

Dear Sasha

If your friends vet really did tell her to use bleach, they should be
reported to a governing body and investigated for misconduct and
malpractice.  

I was so worried for your friends pig and it's immediate health, that I
called Vedra at the Camgridge Cavy Trust just now.

She said that if your friends pig has cuts or wounds (not necessarily easy
to see beneath fur), then the tea tree oil could have gone into the guinea
pigs blood stream and this could cause cardio vascular collapse (serious
heart problems).

Without knowing how much tea tree oil this poor pig has ingested, it is
possible it may have suffered kidney damage.

In short, your friend needs to call other vets in her area STRAIGHT AWAY AS
AN EMERGENCY CALL and explain the situation as ask what they advise her do.
DO NOT in my opinion go back to the vet who suggested bleach.  They don't
have a clue.

The priority at present is not the lice, but the serious state of your
friends pig and it's internal organs.  Without knowing the fraility or
robustness of the pig or its age, it would not be right to take anyone's
advice before seeking FULLY QUALIFIED veteinary attention STRAIGHT AWAY AS
AN EMERGENCY, but the most important thing that you get your friend to do
after reading this email is to get veteinary advice from a good vet straight
away and get this poor pig to the vets.

DO NOT let the vets give the pig an anti-inflammatory injection, as pigs
with mites will have had their nervous system made more sensitive by the
mites, and so they react very badly to such injections.  Please make your
friends vet aware of this.

If you are in the UK, please call Vedra at the Cambridge Cavy Trust for
further advice.

Good luck

Carole

P.S.  Vedra did suggest how to treat the lice, but please email me later
about this once the pig has got over the tea tree problems first.

----------
From: Sasha Yates <raya07 at mac.com>
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2006 19:43:30 -0700
To: <Gpdd at gpdd.org>
Subject: [Gpdd] [Health] Emergency!  Tea Tree Oil Ingestion

Hi GPDD, I rarely post but my friend just got a guinea pig and she's a new
owner.  The guinea pig she got had lice and so she took it to the vet but
the vet just told her to comb out the lice with a comb dipped in bleach.
Since that didn't work, she tried rubbing tea tree oil on the guinea pig and
the piggie started licking her hair.  My friend has been giving the guinea
pig tea tree oil for 5 days now and she seems like she's in a lot of pain.
Is tea tree oil bad?  What's a good way to get rid of piggie lice?

Thank you so much,

Sasha