Vitamin K Coumadin

The vitamin K coumadin relation is important when it comes to the treatment of the most common toxicities in dogs - mouse and rat poisoning.

You will see severe hemorrhaging and eventually death if not properly treated.

Vitamin K coumadin (or other similar poisons) are both involved. Here you find out how the warfarin/coumadin and vitamin K are related.

First:What is vitamin k?

• K1 (found in green plants)
• K2 (found in fish meal and also produced by bacteria)
• K3 (a synthetic version of the previous two)

Vitamin K is fat soluble together with vitamin A, D and E.

Main source of Vitamin K for dogs is produced by bacteria in the large intestine. This is why vitamin k deficiencies seldom naturally occurs.

In practice it is almost ever never seen in dogs. Deficiency could in theory be a problem. If dog is treated long time with antibiotics, killing the bacterias in the gut. Bacterial k vitamin production could be affected.

Main Vitamin K Function

Vitamin K was found by another fellow Dane in 1939. From the very beginning it was known that vitamin K has a special role in the blood coagulation.

Mouse and rat poisoning stops the rodents' blood from clotting by interfering with vitamin K and its recycling function after being used in production of prothrombin and factor VII mainly.

Many clotting factors are made in the liver. Rodenticides of the coumarin type makes it more difficult for the liver to make these natural clotting factors (mainly factor VII and prothrombin) as vitamin K is needed in this process.

Warfarin (and the other coumarins) are inactivating vitamin K. Vitamin K are necessary in the liver in the making of clotting factors, but is inactivated by the poison.

The exact function is not that important, but vitamin K needs to be reactivated after participation in the formation of some of the clotting factors.

No vitamin K reactivation means no production of clotting components leading to bleeding and increases blood clotting time.

The clotting reaction of the blood is not easy to understand or to explain, so let stop here.

The poison has the same affect on dogs. They will start to bleed after some time depending on the amount of poison ingested.

Not straight away but after some time, often days. It depends on the amount toxin your dog got and the type of toxin.

Treatment

If you suspect your dog has eaten some rat poisoning, phone your veterinarian immediately. Remember to bring the label telling the vet which poisoning it is.

Some of the new "second generation warfarins" needs treatment for several weeks. Important to know if its one of them.

I always induce vomiting to these patients. Especially if its not long time has passed since they took the poison.

Then i use vitamin K injection. This extra vitamin K will make the clotting factor active again.

Vitamin K coumadin works against each other. The extra vitamin K is used in clotting instead of the rat poison inactivated vitamin K.

You give so much vitamin K that the rat poison can't cope to inactivate all of it. This vitamin K excess, is the one making clotting work again.

You have to give vitamin K supplement as long the rodenticide is active. Normally its around 7 days for warfarin and up to 4 weeks for the new and more active newer types as bromadilone.

That's why tablets are important for some time after the initial treatment. To make sure the body have sufficient vitamin K during the whole period the toxins are active.

If treatment is initiated in time the prognosis is very good. I have only had one dog severely ill. That dog needed a blood transfusion to survive. But he did. I was proud and owner very very happy.

I am glad this is not necessary every time dogs are rat poisoned.

At the end of the treatment i often do check the clotting time by a blood sample. Some days after the last vitamin K the owner brings back the dog and then we check if clotting time is OK.

Otherwise, unless the dog is poisoned by rat poison, there has been no documented event of a vitamin K deficiency. Likewise, there has never been any report of toxicity due to over supplementation of Vitamin K.

This is how vitamin K coumadin rat poisons are related to each other.