Easter Lily Toxicity

This is the week that lots of folks are going to have Easter Lilies around the house (if you're of the Easter persuasion). Asiatic lilies make attractive flowers for the home and garden. Many people grow them indoors in pots. These are definitely plants that require special attention to keep your pets safe.

All plants in the lilium genus are toxic to cats. Some daylilies are also on the list (hemerocallis) Dogs seem to be much harder to make sick. All parts of the plant are toxic. Ingestion of even one leaf on the plant can be fatal to a cat.

Oddly enough, we don't know exactly what causes the damage. We do know that the kidney's tubular lining is toasted, so there is some kind of direct cell death. The result is acute, severe, and usually irreversible kidney failure.

Early signs include vomiting, usually within a few hours. This will progress to weakness, lethargy, vomiting, changes in volume of urine within a day or so. Death follows.

Ingestion of the plant MUST be treated as an emergency and these guys need to be emptied out (by vomiting) and need to have lots of charcoal. Once they are sick, we support them with fluids and intensive hospital care, but it is a watch and wait situation. Patients who are not producing any urine or are more than two days out from ingestion carry a much poorer prognosis.

Please be careful with the lily plants. Dogs require a much larger dose of the plant to cause problems and you rarely hear of them suffering toxicity from the flower.

AMH