WARNING..arthritis drug carprodyl/ rimadyl

splashgirl45

splashgirl45

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just read a very disturbing article in the daily mail about the above....it says that the possible side effects can be fatal..there have been quite a few cases in america where the company(pfizer) have been sued and they paid out $1000 per owner but didnt admit liability.....the side effects can be vomiting,diarrhoea,loss of appetite,lethargy.....the article does say that hundreds of dogs are treated with this drug and its only a few that are badly affected......just thought it was worth highlighting but know that if a dog is suffering badly with arthritis and its quality of life isnt very good its very difficult to decide what to do... i have no personal experience of arthritis in dogs, i must have been lucky so far but as mine are only 5 and 8 i could still be looking at this in the future...
 
s4sugar thanks for that article, however in their defence, the dm did say that its only a few dogs who have had major problems and the main complaint from people seemed to be that they were not told about the possible side effects.....
 
Those side effects are common ones to the NSAIDS so this is more scaremongering by the daily fail. They are also very nonspecific!

All drugs have side effects.The most important thing to remember "its the dose that makes the poison" is one of the founding principles of pharmacolgy. Drugs are never 100% safe. Individuals can be affected slightly differently and some underlying illness can cause the side effects to be more likely but its a matter of weighing up the pro's versus the con's in quality of life.

Pfizer likely paid out rather than go to the hassle and more importantly the negative publicity of a court case.Il always take court cases with a pinch of salt I've heard of pay outs by insurance of vets just to save the extra costs in court even when the case would likely have been thrown out :(

I have a 9 year old lab who will be going on rimadyl or metacam once her carthropen injections can no longer control the pain from her osteoarthritis. I have seen dogs of renal failure from those drugs(one case had compromised kidneys,another had an accidental overdose-of 2 weeks duration :( )....but Ive seen more dogs have a greatly improved quality of life when free from pain in their twilight years.
Plus these new generation of pain medications are much safer with less side effects than older medications like Aspirin, Flunixin and Bute.

Vomiting diarrhoea loss of appetite lethargy those are all non specific signs of illness. Each with a dozen possible differentials I wouldn't be to quick to just blame the Nsaid given without further testing to rule out other issues.
 
My Rottweiler is arthritic and for 2 years was on occasional NSAIDS (as and when required) and has been on daily metacam for another 2 years. Metacam is fine for him but rimadayl and tramadol both really upset his stomach within a couple of days of starting them. Yet I know quite a few dogs that can't tolerate metacam...

I read the article too and what struck me about it was that the owners were really complaining that their vet made little or no mention of possible side effects AND that there wasn't the 'usual' information leaflet dispensed with the medication.
 
whilst i can appreciate that some of you have used the drug successfully and i know that all drugs have some side effects, i was really posting to make sure that everyone was aware as it seems that not all vets are warning of the possible side effects . if these drugs can give a better quality of life we need to know all of the possible side effects so we can make an informed decision on treatment. whilst the dm may be scaremongering, i for one am glad that i now know a bit more and will be prepared if i have a dog suffering from arthritis.
 
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