Veterinary Voices. Pain awareness

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Veterinary Voices UK Public Page

⭐ SEPTEMBER: PAIN AWARENESS MONTH⭐ There are many conditions and diseases in animals that cause pain and discomfort. ➡️According to the Animal Welfare Act it is your duty of care to ensure you take...

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There are many conditions and diseases in animals that cause pain and discomfort.

According to the Animal Welfare Act it is your duty of care to ensure you take reasonable steps to meet the welfare needs of your animal including...

...need to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.
But there are two big differences in the main types of pain we see... The one that most owners recognise is acute pain because it's usually dramatic and sudden!

ACUTE PAIN
Acute pain is an emergency strategy to help remove ourselves from a noxious (painful) stimulus to protect the body from harm!
Acute pain is self-limiting and is provoked by a specific disease or injury and as stated above serves a useful biologic purpose.... To keep us alive and free from traumatic injuries.

CHRONIC PAIN
The pain that is often under recognised but equally important in animal health and welfare is chronic (long term) pain. Chronic pain in contrast to acute pain may be considered a disease state; it is a pain that lasts for 3 months or more.
With chronic pain there may be changes in the brain and spinal cord that can cause pain ‘wind up’, causing exaggerated pain sensation.
The pain outlasts the normal or usual time of healing and is associated with a disease or injury. It serves no biologic purpose, and has no recognisable end-point which is why it extremely important to manage it to the best of our ability for your pets quality of life. Commonly seen in disease like osteoarthritis it is often picked up late because the symptoms can be subtle and vague.

CLINICAL SIGNS
Clinical Signs of pain depend on a number of factors:

Type of pain
As well as being ACUTE or CHRONIC as mentioned above we can also break pain down into:

Somatic pain -from bones, muscles and skin

Visceral pain - from internal organs

Neuropathic pain -from nerves and spine

Species
Each species and individual animal will react differently to pain. Our idiographic gives some examples in cats and dogs.
Also remember that prey species are extremely good and compensating for pain and hiding it to avoid predation! So we must be extra vigilant in these animals like rabbits and guinea pigs.

Existing pain can make other sensation worse
If our pet's experience chronic (long term) pain the repeated and sustained stimulation of our pain receptors can result in peripheral and central sensitisation or pain 'wind up'.
This results in a non painful stimulus being perceived as pain to our pet. This is know as allodynia and hyperalgesia

Veterinary Voices UK Public Page

⭐ SEPTEMBER: PAIN AWARENESS MONTH⭐ There are many conditions and diseases in animals that cause pain and discomfort. ➡️According to the Animal Welfare Act it is your duty of care to ensure you take...

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September: Pain Awareness Month

A recent study looking into the prevalence of osteoarthritis in young dogs found some incredible, and shocking, results.
The Study found in their group of young dogs aged 8 months to 4 years old that:

Nearly 40% had radiographic OA in at least one joint

Nearly 24% of dogs had mild-moderate clinical OA

In dogs with clinical OA, impairment was observed in 51.7%
Very few with clinical signs were receiving medication for their discomfort/pain
So, we have a potential population of young dogs, with OA changes and showing signs of impairment, but very few are receiving medication to relieve discomfort? Why?
The problem is probably for numerous reasons:

The puppy looks happy and well

The owner does not notice subtle signs of pain, or does not think they are in pain

The puppy is so excited in a practice that pain is not visualised during short visits

Puppies in the study tended to have bilateral joint issues - they may have been doing functional adaptations that are not as easy to spot as a unilateral (one limb) lamess/adaptation

Dogs, not matter what age, are incredible at compensating for pain by shifting weight

Owner worry about giving medications to young dogs
We know that OA is best managed using multiple interventions, and this is equally important in young dogs who we want to protect against quick progression and degeneration if we can.
One study implemented an exercise program, a NSAID, and EFA fish oil. Results showed significant improvement seen in two pain scoring systems and SNoRE (night time restlessness), there was 97% compliance seen with the medication so owners did not find it hard to administer.
Pain management is key to the OA management plan and early treatment is fundamental.

Veterinary Voices UK Public Page

September: Pain Awareness Month A recent study looking into the prevalence of osteoarthritis in young dogs found some incredible, and shocking, results. The Study found in their group of young...

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