This Woman's Cat Almost Died After She Started Using Essential Oils

by Jenny

Due to the rise in MLM (multi-level marketing) companies, certain products have become increasingly popular over the last few years. One of these products is essential oils. 

These are concentrated forms of oils from a multitude of plants and are usually quite pricey. Some people use these oils simply for their scents, but others use them for health and medical conditions. 

There is medical and anecdotal evidence for lots of oils that purpose them as being helpful for weight loss and weight management, stress relief, and even chronic pain conditions. Some of these oils can even be used for personal hygiene and for home cleaning.

Having a pet means you need to be vigilant about the products you use in your home in a conscious effort to keep them safe.

There are 2 well-known MLM companies that sell these essential oils. The first is Young Living, a company that started 24 years ago that is well known for maintaining top-notch purity and potency in their oils. The other most well-known essential oil company is Doterra, which was founded in 2008 and reached 1 billion dollars in sales only 7 years later.Despite the benefits so many people have claimed to receive from essential oils, they are not always good. 

Earlier in January, a woman named Sue Murray, who lives in Michigan, shared a viral post where she was freaking out because she thought she had poisoned her daughter's cat by using an essential oil diffuser.

via: Giphy

Mrs. Murray stated in the now-deleted Facebook post that she had been using a diffuser with Eucalyptus oil near her bed to help with her nasal congestion. For the first few days, Sue noticed nothing different, but on the fourth day, she noticed that her daughter's 16-year-old cat, Ernie, was "lethargic, unstable on his feet and was drooling excessively."

Murray's husband read online shortly after that the eucalyptus essential oil can be deadly to cats. Urgently, they took Ernie to the vet, who gave him antibiotics, vitamins, and order to keep an eye on his health. In the post, Murray stated that since the vet visit, "Ernie hasn't been himself. He is eating and drinking a little, walking a little better, has some diarrhea, but is still not out of the woods," and went on to say that she had no idea at all that this could happen.

Luckily, the event and other similar ones did not go unnoticed by veterinary professionals.

In response to another similar event involving essential oils and a cat owner, Michael San Filippo, a media relations specialists for the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) gave some advice:

"We'd advise pet owners to be cautious using them around the house. If you do, keep them out of reach and monitor your pets closely for signs of poisoning such as drooling, pawing at the face, difficulty breathing, lethargy, vomiting or muscle tremors."

To add to that, the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) warns:


In response, a woman named Janet Roark, who happens to be a seller of Doterra oils and a veterinarian who uses them on clients, made this video.

In the video, Dr. Roark is clearly skeptical. In regards to Sue Murray's post, she states:

"As far as the essential oils go, she did state that she bought them on Amazon- and that's gonna be my first point here. You really wanna be careful about where you purchase your essential oils from... do not buy them on Amazon or Ebay."

She goes on to include that you must buy these oils directly from a reputable company that does its own testing because the more inexpensive, random brands generally don't contain any actual oils. 

Essentially she is saying- we don't really know what was in the oil Sue Murray bought, and so there's no way to know for sure that Ernie's illness had anything to do with the eucalyptus oil in the diffuser.

At the end of the day, every pet owner needs to do their research and follow their vet's advice. We're just wishing Ernie a speedy recovery!

via: Giphy