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Animal Drug Investigation Reveals Pet Medication Often Doesn't Work
KentuckyFC writes: "Americans spent an estimated $14.2 billion on veterinary care for their pets in 2013 — and that doesn't even include proprietary health diets and food supplements. Put another way, pet owners pay about $850 annually in veterinary expenses per dog, and about $575 per cat. Factor in the emotional energy we invest in keeping our companion animals healthy, and you'd hope for high confidence in the end results. But when one journalist investigated the science behind the meds being used to treat his aging dog's osteoarthritis, he was in for a nasty surprise. Glucosamine and chondroitin food supplements? Next to useless. Tramadol to kill pain? It's probably just getting dogs high. The one treatment that's been proven to help, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug called carprofen, is often left on the shelf because of fears — likely overblown — that it might damage dogs' kidneys. In part, you can blame this sorry state of affairs on a lack of financial incentives for drug companies to run clinical trials on animals. But often, vets aren't paying attention to the studies that have been done. If we want our dogs and cats to receive the best possible medical care, we need to ask our vets some tougher questions about why they think the drugs will work."
The primary reason why opioids work as painkillers is specifically because they get you high. They dont really kill pain so much as they make you not care that you're in pain. So tramadol getting the dogs high means its working. Except the biggest problem with tramadol is that it works as an SSRI/SNRI first, and then its primary metabolite, O-desmethyl-tramadol, is what works as a pain killer (affecting the kappa and mu receptors). Tramadol is more of an antidepressant than a painkiller, which makes its addiction significantly worse (ask anyone who has withdrawn from antidepressants).
Um what are you talking about? A human absolutely DOES need that same kind of attention if they're healthy. You're talking about the equivalent of a child in the first year of life, not a 20-year-old college kid. Kids go in to see the pediatrician about 4 or 5 times in their first year for routine check-ups, vaccinations, boosters, and more. Then, after that, they pretty much see the doctor for a checkup each year indefinitely. How is that different from what you're seeing with your puppy? You also have to remember, for a dog seeing the vet once a year, that's equivalent to a human going every 4 or 5 years or so based on how rapidly their body ages in relation to a human's lifespan.
Also, most human children don't come from a puppy mill or spend time eating dirt, plants, and bugs outdoors- if they did they'd also be tested and treated for parasites as necessary.
If you're feeling like you're being grifted at this point when your vet is just offering you appropriate and practical medical care for your pet, you're setting yourself up to be a difficult, irresponsible pet owner. Please don't go that route and at least, as this poorly though-out original article mentions, at least ASK your vet why you need to do something and how/why it works if you're not sure rather than just assuming you're being scammed and doing a disservice to your pet.
I only use pet meds that have been tested on human prisoners.
The best thing I can suggest is to go to your local farm supply store instead of the vet, for anything but the most serious symptoms. They typically have the medications readily available for a reasonable price, and will often have people knowledgeable enough to point you in the right direction.
Case in point: My cat had a nasty eye infection, and I decided I didn't want to spend the time, effort or money to pack up the cat and go to the vet. So I went to the local farm supply store and said "hey, my cat has goopy eyes that aren't clearing up, and in fact seem to be getting worse. Do you have anything for that?"
They sold me a small tube of ophthalmic antibiotic ointment intended for cats/dogs, gave me brief instructions on how much to use and how to apply it without putting the cat's eye out, and about $10 later I was on my way home. It cleared up the cat's eyes in a couple days, and I had plenty left over and have used it on a couple occasions since then. In total, I probably saved at least $500 in vet bills, since I've used it to treat 2 cats on 2-3 occasions each over the past several years.
The same type of store will often have good wormers, earmite meds, etc., so as long as the animal has classic symptoms that are easily diagnosed (and again, if in doubt just describe the symptoms to someone working at the store), they ought to be able to help you.
Most of the small animal problems that only a vet can fix, can instead be fixed for about $0.06 at home. Large animals like horses, cows, etc. are different, and may warrant a call to an actual vet. Just about the only thing that's probably worth a visit to a vet for a cat/dog is to have them "fixed" (which really ought to be called "broken" in my opinion - not because it shouldn't be done, simply because it's removing functionality).
most human children don't...spend time eating dirt, plants, and bugs outdoors
I'm not so sure about that one...
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Which is why I had my dog put to sleep when she had a seizure, probably treatable, but she also had cancer and was 14 and had lost hear hearing about a month prior to the seizure. At that point all I could picture was leaving for work in the morning the dog having a seizure upstairs and taking a tumble down the stairs in the dazed and confused moments afterward and then lying there in pain broken for 8 hours until I got home to find her.
She went to the emergency vet that night and was put to sleep.
She is loved and missed, this was 4 years ago.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
There are a lot of bad products alongside the good ones at the local stores. At many farm supply stores, they have none of the good products. The ratio of good products to bad products is not in your pet's favor if you haven't asked a vet which ones are actually safe. (A phone call to the vet to confirm doesn't cost anything, by the way.) For example, commercial off-the-shelf flea & tick medicines and collars that cause anything from minor skin infection to major problems like necrosis and skin sloughing off under the collar are very commonly sold for a few years and then disappear/get recalled under mysterious circumstances. You're gambling on whether you're going to cause huge damage to your pet if you just do what you feel like doing with medications!! Don't just go there and assume that the stock boy is going to know more than a vet!
So wait, you're advocating going to people with even less knowledge than an average vet?
The main problem with your suggestion is that, in the early stages of virtually every disease, you and your farm supply store buddies will have no idea whether a condition is serious or not. In fact, in many cases, neither will a vet without the aid of special equipment or serial monitoring. Are your cats "goopy eyes" an infection or a corneal ulcer? Is your supply store dude just gonna whip out his ophthalmoscope and some staining compound to check that for you? What about lumps on your dog? Gonna change its diet, or actually get a biopsy done to check for cancer? How about grass seed injuries? You just gonna whip out a flick knife and cut that bastard out, or do you think your dog might want some pain killers with its skin incision? Etc, etc, etc.
On another topic, your advice won't work in countries like Australia or the UK, where antibiotics are unavailable without prescription (you know, because of this annoying thing called antibiotic resistance).
Of course, arguably the homeopathic drugs are just as effective as the prescriptions with less harmful side effects at 1/100th the cost.
DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER!
Homepathic pet medicine can be extremely dangerous. I gave some to my cat once. Two days later she died of an overdose while drinking from her water bowl.