So Fluffy or Fido isn’t feeling well today. Not eating so well? Not moving around as much? Whining, moaning, and shaking? Limping, or can’t get up the stairs? All the above!? The issue of pain management in pets has become huge in the past decade, and similar to people, there are both advancements and some precautions when dealing with this topic.

There are many different reasons why your pet may be in pain – dermatitis, ear infection, bad teeth, stomach or other abdominal aches, and most commonly osteoarthritis, just to name a few. Regardless, given the many different reasons for pain, there are now many different ways to help a pet!

We are all familiar with taking a pill (usually NSAIDs – non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, like Motrin) when we have our own aches and pains, but you can’t just give the same thing to your cat or dog! Pets are very sensitive to different types of human pain relievers (Tylenol is toxic to cats, for example), but thankfully there are several choices today, especially for dogs. But if your pet has an underlying condition (like liver disease) or needs to be on pain medication long-term, then we need to pay special attention to how to treat your pal. This may involve initial blood tests, x-rays, or both.

Rehabilitation is also an advancing field now, as we’ve seen many pets benefit from the different methods of treating pain, depending on where it’s coming from. We can combat muscle-wasting with passive exercise and massage, inflammation with cold or gel packs, muscle spasms with low-level moist heat, and joint stiffness with stretching exercises and swimming. These should all be done only after proper instruction.

This is a very large topic, and I’ve only touched the surface of it, but this gives you an idea of how far we’ve come from the days when some people thought that animals don’t feel pain, or don’t need medication for it. We had a very grumpy cat come in to our clinic years ago with really bad teeth, and after extracting many of them and sending him home with pain medication, the owner called us a few days later saying he had a new cat! He was purring for the first time in years! If you have any questions about pain management, please give us a call!

Till next time, Dr. Steve

User Rating: / 0
PoorBest