Why did my kitten die?

Question
QUESTION: I found a kitten a week ago and brought it home. I feed her first soft food and then dry food with plenty of clean water. after a week i brought her to the vet for her first shots and the vet said she could have worms so she gave me a pill to give her. as well my kitten had fleas so i treated her with kitten advantage the vet gave me. When I got home I sat her on me and placed the pill in her mouth. she swallowed it and then spat it out. i tried again and she finally swallowed it. Later I noticed her breathing hard so i calmed her down.

The next morning she was very still and moved a little...her breathing was fast and she had difficulty and was whizzing.

the vet kept her the weekend and today called me to say she had died.

what caused it...the pill or the worms?
i never thought of reaction to the pill...the vet is doing an autopsy to let me know but i so sad because i thought it would be okay and i would pick her up soon. I never had a cat die from any disease so this was a first for me and i am 29 and had cats since i was 11 years old

as well it was so heart breaking since my other cat was grieving for her yesterday but i didn't know why...i kept telling her that my kitten would come back but she just looked at me and her eyes teared up

could i have killed her by placing the pill in her mouth? she didn't choke and wasn't gaging for air

ANSWER: I don't know what pill you gave her Nadia. Tell me the name of it. I will tell you that worms can certainly cause death, but not like that. It sounds like she had a reaction not to the drug, but possibly to an all-out die off of the worms. It can cause a toxin to be released by the worms that can make the kitten go into shock. It is very rare but it does happen. She had to have a huge worm burden for that to happen.

I have read about it but have never seen it.
There was nothing you could have done differently, if that is what happened. She would have had to be wormed no matter what, so it was now or later.

I am really sorry this happened to you Nadia. You cannot change what happened but you can honor her memory by getting another kitten from the pound that has been wormed already and giving her to your cat for company. You will be saving a life and honoring her short time on earth.

Please let me know what the vet tells you after the necropsy.
My thoughts are with you.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Jana,

thanx for replying so rapidly...the medication given was 1/2 pill of milbemax chaton for a 2 month kitten. The kitten was fairly small and underweight according to the vet. she was only 2 lbs (0.94kg). I will know tomorrow the results of the necropsy (it's another word for autopsy right?)

Answer
Well this is a fairly safe drug for kittens. I still think that she had anaphylactic shock from a worm die off. I am not a vet (I am a registered Vet tech) Nadia but when you combine an underweight kitten with a huge load of round worms, you are asking for problems, even in getting rid of them.

What can you do, however, in a situation like this? Just what the vet did and you did. So there is no point in second guessing in this situation.
You should ask the vet if it was a possibility that she had a sudden die off of worms that could have caused shock.
And yes, a necropsy is the animal equivalent of an autopsy (auto is self, so humans do an autopsy).