“As our pets age, pain is inevitable, but suffering isn’t,” says Dr. Peter Hanson, senior director companion animal pharmaceuticals at Merial in Duluth, GA. Statistically most dogs and cats are over six years old, and as a result of regular vet check ups, enhanced health care and better nutrition – overall, pets are living longer than ever. Dogs and cats are impacted by the same diseases associated with longevity as in people, including various kinds of cancers and osteoarthritis. “We can’t prevent all the illnesses associated with old age, but we can prevent chronic pain,” says Dr. Daniel Aja, president of the American Animal Hospital Association. Earlier this year, the AAHA published new Guidelines For Senior Care, which includes strong wording concerning pain relief. The bottom line, according to Aja is there’s absolutely no excuse for a dog or cat to be in prolonged pain. Historically, this stance wasn’t always the case in veterinary medicine. “After 15 years in an emergency practice, I know that pain relief was once considered, at best, an after thought,” says Michael McFarland, director of sedation and pain management at Pfizer Animal Health. He says, “It was thought veterinarians actually shouldn’t relieve the pain – even if they could - because you wouldn’t want the animal to do further damage.” For example, say after leg surgery, you wouldn’t a dog to slow healing or risk a re-injury by being active; a dog who is in pain won’t be active. In fact, science now shows not relieving pain is unwise. McFarland explains, “Pain is a significant stressor and has a profound affect on the ability to mount an immune response to heal. “Relieve pain and you’ll promote healing,” says Aja, who has a practice in Traverse City, MI. McFarland, who is in Dallas, TX adds, “There was a second camp who simply felt animals weren’t capable of feeling pain. Today, we know better, and we understand that dogs and cats do feel pain very much the same as we do.” So do hamsters and gerbils – birds, and even reptiles. “We’re only now beginning to learn more about how to treat pain in reptiles,” says Dr. Steve Barten, a veterinarian from Vernon Hills, IL with a special interest in cold-blooded pets. “I believe veterinarians have a responsibility to relieve their discomfort just as (we do for) any other pet.” The ethical line in the sand has shifted. Aja says, “It’s simply wrong to realize an animal is in pain and do nothing about it.” The first step may come down to realizing when an animal is in pain in the first place. Small animals – like those hamsters and gerbils, as well as birds and reptiles are masters at masking pain. In the wild, if a bird or reptile looks like he or she is suffering, that animal will quickly become dinner for a predator seeking an easy meal. Even cats often times trick their owners into thinking everything is fine, when in reality they’re hurting. “If a pet owner thinks a pet is in pain, that pet is probably suffering no matter how it presents at the vet office,” says Aja. “No veterinarian should discount an owner’s concerns, or minimize the importance of managing pain.” Even in the recent past, the question was how to relieve pain. When Dr. Daryl Millis, professor at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine – Knoxville, began practicing, his pain relief tools were pretty much limited to aspirin and steroids. Today, aspirin is joined by a long list of additional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID’s), as well as alternative therapies ranging from acupuncture to physical therapy. Special drug preparations, known as compounding, allows animals to take drugs they previously couldn’t. Analgesics help pets post surgically. Even diet may play a surprising role in pain management. For the first time, pain relief is now a discipline being researched. Drugs are specifically being designed to help pets, rather than hoping human drugs can do also ease anguish in animals. In fact, as a result of this new focus on pain relief for pets, people may also benefit. For example, at the University of Illinois college of Veterinary Medicine, Urbana, veterinary oncologist Dr. Timothy Fan is now combining a drug-class called bisphosphonates with chemotherapy and radiation to treat bone cancer in dogs. “If we’re successful, not only will we increase the lifespan of animals with bone cancer, but we’ll alleviate excruciating pain associated with the disease,” he says. So far, about half the dogs have responded short term to the drug cocktail, and about a quarter of them have improved longer term. Fan adds, “This is significant because people also get this kind of cancer, and our hope is to ultimately help people as well as animals. As veterinarians and oncologists – we pay a lot of attention to quality of life.” Most estimates indicate over half of all senior dogs and cats have some degree osteoarthritis. As any person with arthritis can concur, the pain can be overwhelming, absolutely impacting quality of life. There’s no doubt that before Pfizer Animal Health marketed a NSAID called Rimadyl in 1997, many more arthritic pets were euthanized than today just because their owners couldn’t stand to see them suffer. Still, until now, the assortment of recent NSAID’s for pets have been based on human NSAID drugs; however the latest NSAID to hit the market, called Previcox, was specifically researched and developed by Merial to help dogs with osteoarthritis. Hanson of Merial
maintains that the action of Previcox is specific to dogs. What might be surprising is that even the drug company vets, Hanson and McFarland of Pfizer are the first to agree that popping a pill is not a long term solution to dealing with most chronic pain. |
