The Thing About Pain

I was glad to see that Nancy in her introductory post mentioned that one of her main motivations for becoming a vet tech was to prevent the needless suffering of animals. That is my main motivation as a writer about pets, too - to make their lives better, healthier, and happier, and to help pet owners find the information they need to make good decisions about their pets' care.

There's really nothing about animals I'm not interested in, but that interest rises to the level of a crusade on a few issues. And at the top, the absolute top, of that list is pain control.

Pain hurts. Everyone knows that. But pain also HARMS, and not everyone knows that. Many people seem to believe that a little bit of pain is good for the soul, that a little bit of pain is better for a pet than pain medication, and that letting the animal experience pain will help keep him quiet while he heals from surgery or an injury. All of these ideas are outdated, dangerous, and just plain wrong.

Pain in and of itself is bad for your dog or cat (and for you, too!). It disrupts sleep, it suppresses the immune system, it can cause gastrointestinal disturbances, and it can sensitize an individual to pain in such a way that even minor pain is perceived as severe pain, with all its debilitating effects and suffering. (This is the phenomenon known as "wind up.")

Pain relief, on the other hand, will help your pet recover faster. According to veterinarians at the University of Wisconsin Veterinary School, the "benefits include improved respiratory functions, decreasing stress responses surrounding surgery, decreased length of hospitalization, faster recovery to normal mobility, improved rates of healing and even decreasing the spread of cancer after surgery. Almost all studies show people and animals return to normal eating and drinking habits sooner when given relief from pain. Therefore prevention, early recognition and aggressive management of pain and anxiety should be essential to veterinary care of small mammals. The current approach is to be sensitive to the subtle signs of pain, because the treatment of pain itself can be healing. Pain is stressful and can prolong recovery."

Convincing pet owners and, sadly, many veterinarians, that pet pain is real and can and should be prevented and treated is critical. As a pet owner, you should ask your pet's veterinarian for his or her view of pet pain control before your pet will need it. Too many vets have very few drugs in their pain control arsenal, rely too much on those few drugs, and have outdated ideas about the necessity of pain control. Others will reject some very effective alternative pain control modalities, such as acupuncture, because they lack the training and background to fairly evaluate them.

I wrote a three-part series on pain in animals two years ago, and while it includes many suggestions for treating chronic, acute, arthritis, and post-surgical pain, it needs updating to reflect new information, new therapies, and drugs gaining wider acceptance in veterinary medicine. In particular, NSAID use has, if anything, become more routine in veterinary practice, and I think that some safer and equally effective options (both alternative and conventional) are being overlooked.

One of my goals for the Vet Tech blog is to examine some of these options, to provide basic information on pain and pain control in animals, and to help pet owners communicate better with their pets' veterinarian about pain. So... much more to come!