# Here is a topic header to get your attention. The rats ate my Zanax.



## BluesBrothers (Aug 22, 2010)

please dont judge, please dont judge, please dont judge! im a newbie at rats, but i know there is no excuse for what happened. im just AMAZED they're alive.
last night i was reading in bed( i have health issues) and my husband brought me my Zanax, a total of 4 milligrams, one is before bed and one is upon awakening, and i was not in the room when he left the pills, along with cookies and soy milk, and when i came back to bed i realized the boys had made their way to the nightstand and everything was GONE. cookies and both pills.
totally freaked out and we searched as to where they might have stashed the pills, but i think they ate both pills. how could two rats eat four milligrams of zanax and be totally normal??? for they are! i stayed up all night and watched them( while searching for the pills) and they are totally fine now,16 hours later.

obviously the lesson has been learned, not more meds on the nightstand table when the boys are getting their free roam time.
is this a miracle or are those pills stashed somewhere where they will soon be eaten and kill my boys?


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## laughingrats (Apr 21, 2010)

I think they stashed them somewhere. Had they ate them you would of notice. You should look in every nook and cranny.


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## BluesBrothers (Aug 22, 2010)

they are NOT stashed!
we literally took everything in the room apart, and im a total clean freak anyway so there isnt stacks of anything anywhere, put on bright lights, hands and feet of 3 adults with flashlights, all bedding thrown away after being thouroughly sifted through, did find half the cookie stashed in a usual place, but not a sign of the tiny little white pills. i think they ate them, i really do. im talking 5 hours of hands on searching!


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## Ratilda (Sep 15, 2010)

Ok. You got my attention with that heading, and actually got me to post for the first time. Apparently, 4 mg of Xanax is unlikely to kill a rat, unless your rat had had a slurp of alcohol (or other sedative) prior to ingesting the Xanax. It is times like this that one is grateful for laboratory testing on rats before a medication goes to market. 

The LD 50 for Xanax for rats is 331-2171 mg/ kg. LD 50 is the dose at which half of the rats die. So, if my math is right.... Your rat would have had to ingest 82 mg of the Xanax to get an effective lethal dose.

By the way, one of the main reasons that doctors prescribe Xanax and not barbiturates is that it is just as hard in humans to kill yourself with a xanax overdose.

Also, in humans, one can do a urine toxicology to confirm if benzos had been ingested. When I had a very similar thing happen when my dog ingested one of my medications, And he was symptomatic, the vet treated my dog but had also offered to confirm with a urine test that the drug actually had been ingested. I chose to not test as his symptoms was classic for the ingestion and he recovered well. I, for one, will definitely not judge, as I've been in exactly the same place. But I'm extremely cautious with meds around my pets now, as I imagine you will be too. 

Anyways , I checked a few sources to confirm that LD 50. All were giving the same number. My final source was an actual medical source... Proceedings of the fifth international congress of therapeutic drug monitoring and clinical toxicology.. Use and abuse of the benzodiazepines by fraser, Albert D. 20(5) oct 1998,481-489.

So, likely, the rats may have overdosed and just slept very well. Keep in mind that there is a medication in humans that can reverse benzo overdose so, don't hesitate to take the rat to the vet if you have any concerns


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## BluesBrothers (Aug 22, 2010)

thanks for posting ratilda, that was an amazing response.
really appreciate your time and thoughfullness!


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