Pain Is Out, Healing Is In

Pain is out and Healing is in

Ouch…you get out of bed and stubbed your toe. The pain moves up your leg, through your abdomen and settles in your head.
All of us know this feeling and can easily describe it to our families, doctors or friends. But what about our family pets and their pain? We can’t tell you how many times clients have said, “but he doesn’t cry or moan as he gets up or down”! Here is the take home message: If you don’t observe your family pet and take these warning signs seriously, you are missing his/her pain. The same physiological mechanisms of pain perception is common to animals as it is to humans, so a good guideline to follow is if the disease, procedure or injury would cause you pain it will do the same with our pets.

Her are some signs of pain in your pet:

--Difficulty rising from sleep or rest
--Cannot get up on the bed, chair, or in the car
--Very slow to sit or lay down or sitting or laying differently than before
--Biting or licking at a specific joint or at their back
end
--Inappettance or lethargy
--Limping or not placing a limb down properly
--Reluctance to walk, jump or play
--Lagging behind on walk
--Yelping in pain when touched or becoming aggressive

The diagnosis and resolution of pain is a much-discussed issue in veterinary medicine. For me, it is my mission to allow the body to heal and ensure that I provide my patients with quality of life. Pain relief is complex and we need to design a treatment for each patient on an individualized basis. Additionally, pain relief may take many forms and I utilize them all.

There are some important facts you should know about relating to osteoarthritis, the leading cause of pain in our pets. One in every five adult animals has some form of osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease affecting the elbows, hips or spine. This totals well over eight million animals in the United States. The overweight pet is much more susceptible, but this disease knows no limits and will strike the young and healthy pet. In a survey done of three hundred pets with arthritis, five percent were under five years of age, fourteen percent were five-seven years, twenty-seven percent were eight-ten years, thirty-five percent were eleven-13 years and nineteen percent were fourteen years or older. On a per weight basis, twenty-seven percent were less than twenty-five pounds, twenty-eight percent were twenty-five to fifty pounds, and forty-five percent were over fifty pounds.

Cats will exhibit pain with very subtle signs that may be characterized as a lack of activity. They may sit in the back of a room and avoid interaction with caregivers or others may thrash around violently. We often see the latter with young cats and a painful acute experience like surgery or trauma. The impression that if a cat is purring it might be pain free is false, as we have seen cats in profound discomfort and still purring.

Providing pain relief is the compassionate response. Instinctively, an animal will seek comfort (for example, avoiding painful movements and protecting injuries), but human caretakers can only provide pain relief, whether it is the veterinarian or an owner acting on a veterinarian’s advice. Generally, we try to start out with supplements or neutraceuticals for relief of pain and inflammation. Products like glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, omega 3,6 fatty acids and CMO are often used with our pet patients and are kept on hand at our hospital. Many of these products are used with anecdotal evidence the pain and swelling improves. They work in a number of different ways from providing a substrate for new chondrocytes (cell that line joint spaces) to grow to decreasing the inflammatory chemical cascade in the body, thus relieving pain. The next choice in levels of pain management would be the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (aspirin-like compounds). Some examples of theses products would be aspirin, Deramaxx, Naprosyn, Feldene and an injectable agent called Adequan, for the very severe cases we use the narcotics or opiates, like morphine, Butorphanol or a Fentanyl patch, which is very useful in orthopedic surgeries. Occasionally, products like prednisone or triamcinolone, the steroid compounds, may be very useful for inflammation and the pain it causes. We have also utilized Valium or methocarbamol for muscle relaxation to aid in decreasing pain.

In keeping with our ability to treat the whole animal and allowing their bodies to heal, I offer, Laser therapy, Ultrasound. E-Stium. Veterinary Orthopedic Manipulation, Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture. Some of these techniques have been used for hundreds of years. They may not work as quickly as the prescription drugs but are incredibly effective …and their results may last longer. We have treated many very painful animals with Chiropractic and Acupuncture with great success. Often, aquapuncture with dilute B-12 injections at the acupuncture sites or dry acupuncture needles and a very mild electro-stimulation has been very useful and effective.

Please fell free to discuss pain management and the various alternatives with your veterinarian at any time.