Zappa and pain meds and hips

[jaggirl47]

So, Zappa went to the vet again today. I was aiming for a 3 lb weight loss and we went over by a few. He was at 76 lbs today, I wanted him at 78 to help his hips. When he looses too much, he just gets way too thin too fast. So anyway, we are going for a 2 lb weight gain now.

Well, the vet and I were going over pain meds today. Neither one of us wanted to try Rimadyl(sp) because of his GI issues and back in April/May his lipase was through the roof. So, we decided together on aspirin. The vet wants him to have 406mg (1 regular strength, 1 baby) 2X a day. Does this sound OK?

We are trying to hold him off on a replacement until we move to Washington. I want to be able to stay consistent with 1 surgeon, 1 rehab.

Does anyone have any recommendations on natural pain relievers?

[middleofnowhere]

BTE responded really well to chiropractic & accupuncture - You might want to look for one of those practitioners. I think licorice or anise tincture is supposed to help, too. BUT be very cautious mixing your pain relievers or other supplements without checking with your vet first.

[jaggirl47]

I am interested in chiro but I would feel better if he had a better activity level so I will probably wait until after he gets his replacement and is through with his rehab. My vet here is doing his referral to WSU before we leave so Zappa doesn't have to go through all the pokes and prods and examinations after we have to find a new primary vet.
Right now he is on Adequan injections weekly and gets fish oil/vit e added to his meals. We will be starting the aspirin tonight with dinner.

[BowWowMeow]

I have a lot of recommendations. I tried Ascriptin and it did NOTHING for Chama.

The two natural pain relievers that worked best for her (and have been working for friends' dogs too) are:

Only Natural Pet Get Up and Go

Tasha's Herbspirin

I used these in addition to a loading dose of Cetyl-M, a double dose of Springtime Inc's Longevity and 2000mg/day of Ester C.

[jaggirl47]

Oh, yeah. I forgot to add he is getting glucosamine/condroitin.

[jfisher]

My vet doesn't like Rimadyl. He actually feels the analgesics in the opiate category are safer because they've been around for centuries and in a way are natural, being derived from the poppy plant. In addition, they work better and there's no risk of abuse when they're being used on an animal. For later in life or end-stage illnesses, definitely. They've had a lot of pets with bad reactions to Rimadyl and hardly any with opiates.

-Jackie

PS- The vet DOES have to be able to trust that the owner really is giving it to their pet and not selling it or taking it themselves, but I think that would be a pretty sick individual to watch their pet suffer just so that they could get high.

[jaggirl47]

Unfortunately, there are probably ALOT of sick people out there. We are going to try the aspirin for now and see how that works.

[jfisher]

Hmm...I wonder if the vets could eliminate that possibility by doing random drug screens on the pet, making sure the pet tests positive for opiates? (Charged to the owner's account, of course) No loss of profit for the vets, and much less risk of the owner abusing the pet's drugs.

-Jackie

[jaggirl47]

Not a bad idea Jackie. My biggest worry would be that my 1y/o "kitten" would get into them. She was given some narcotic pain med after her spay surgery that had her swinging on the cat tree by her rear legs. We, ummm, kinda threw the rest of the med out and refused to give her anymore drugs after that.

[LisaT]

Opiates don't work as antiinflammatories, do they? It's a different kind of pain relief too...