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My kitten died after dewormer. Was it caused by the medication?

Updated on September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Cat | Bengal | Male | unneutered | 1 month and 13 days old | 0.8 lbs

We had our first Bengal kitten 6 weeks ago and he had his first visit to our new veterinarian 2 days ago. He had a dewormer from the vet and acted just fine since. He's been eating and completely weaned off his mom. He was playing the night before. I checked on him at 5 am and he was moving around his bed. 4 hours later he was laying next to his bed not moving and barely breathing. His heart stopped about 20 minutes after that. What are the odds it would be from the dewormer?

1 Answer

Most Helpful Answer

Jennifer Summerfield, DVM CPDT-KA

Answered By Jennifer Summerfield, DVM CPDT-KA

Veterinarian, Certified Dog Trainer

Published on February 8th, 2020

I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your kitten! How awful. To answer your question, the odds that his death was related to the dewormer he received at the vet are essentially zero. All of the commonly-used dewormers in the US are extremely safe, and I have never seen a single serious problem related to a dose of dewormer in my entire career. It's much more likely that your kitten had some type of unrelated illness that caused his death.

If you want to try and find out what happened, the only way to know would be to have an autopsy done, called a necropsy in animals. Your veterinarian should be able to advise you on where you can have this done, if it's something you want to pursue. Again, I'm very sorry for loss.
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