by messenger » Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:10 am
Hello Rock Python. I think I accidentally sent off my reply to you before completing it, so am starting again! Vapona is an organophosphate poison used as an insecticide and also in human and veterinary medicine. Accurate dosage is essential, as the safety margin is very small indeed. This means, in practice, giving a precisely measured amount to each individual patient whose body mass is known exactly - something quite impossible to achieve simply by putting a bit of Vapona strip in a cage of unknown volume containing an animal whose mass has not been very precisely determined.
Vapona is absorbed by all routes, such as skin, lungs and gut.
It is what is called an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. Acetylcholine is a chemical that allows a nerve impulse to pass from the end plate of a motor nerve into a muscle fibre, thus causing a contraction. As soon as the message has been transmitted, the acetylcholine must be destroyed by an enzyme, acetylcholinesterase, to allow the nerve to resume its resting state in readiness for the next message. If it is not destroyed, neuromuscular function grinds to a halt - and so does the whole animal! Vapona acts by preventing the enzyme from destroying the acetylcholine.
Acetylcholine is found not only in the junctions between nerves and muscles throughout the body, but also in neural synapses in the brain, and in red blood cells. Too much Vapona is really not a good thing at all ...
Non-lethal overdoses of Vapona are treated in the same way as poisoning by organophosphates in general, but this is something that must be done by a vet. The outlook for Vapona poisoning in reptiles is not great.
One other thing - Vapona is fat-soluble, and can be stored in the fat bodies of reptiles for quite a long time. When the animal starts using up its fat reserves, Vapona can be liberated and cause signs of poisoning long after exposure.
I hope that this helps.
Messenger