What is best arthritis medicine for dogs
Treating Arthritis in Dogs - a plan to keep them pain free!
when it comes to successfully treating
arthritis in dogs and cats there's far
more involved than simply giving them
some supplements or chucking them some
painkillers every now and then and it
doesn't have to be complicated or
expensive the fact is that a few simple
changes in your pets lifestyle or how
you're managing them could make all the
difference with them living as happy and
comfortable a life as possible that
actually means that they live longer as
well I'm dr. Alex from our pets health
comm where my aim is to help you and
your dog and cat live as healthy and
happy alive as possible and treating
arthritis successfully in dogs and cats
is just one of my five pet health
essentials that you can find in my free
guide linked on screen now and we can
break the treatment of arthritis down
into seven main areas and the first of
these is simply to keep your pet as
healthy a weight as possible being
overweight and obesity is a huge problem
it affects about 60% of our pet dogs and
cats and it has a massive impact on
comfort in arthritic pets in fact the
impact is so great that we know as
little as a 6% weight loss can
dramatically improve your pets company
so that if they are carrying a little
bit too much weight focusing on shifting
a few pounds can make all the difference
now tied into this at number two is
nutrition now feeding your pet a good
quality age-appropriate diet is really
important but actually one of the best
things that we can do when it comes to
supplementation and I'll discuss other
supplements later is to actually feed a
joint specific diet so they contain a
number of different things that help
reduce weight gain and actually optimize
for weight loss they help to maintain
muscle mass and shift fat they also
contain a mix of essential fatty acids
that's our omega-3 fatty acids that have
an anti-inflammatory effect and can
improve the comfort of your pet the next
step in successfully treating arthritis
is environmental modification and it's
not as complicated as it sounds it
simply means if you've got slippy floors
in your house put down a few non-slip
rugs or runners so that your pet isn't
slipping and sliding everywhere
make sure your cat can easily get to
their food and then
litter tray make sure that they're not
having to navigate lots of steps help
your dog into the car
don't let them jump out of the car make
sure they've got comfortable bedding in
a warm draft-free area thinking hard
about how the environment can impact
your pet and taking a few simple cheap
steps can make a huge difference every
little step really does add up a lot of
owners start giving supplements quite
early in the disease especially when
they're first noticing the signs of
arthritis in their dog or cat
unfortunately though we often rely far
too much on different supplements and
there are some good ones that do have
some evidence behind them but there's a
lot of rubbish out there that really has
no proven benefits in the treatment of
arthritis in dogs and cats now the best
ones as I've already touched on are our
omega-3 fatty acids that's our fish oils
now you might see that as cod liver oil
krill oil green lipped mussel they all
contain a rich source of omega-3 fatty
acids that's proven to reduce the
inflammation and improve comfort in
arthritic pets if you're thinking about
something like flaxseed oil
unfortunately while that is rich in
omega-3 fatty acids they're a type that
can't get broken down by our pets into a
usable form so really they're not as
beneficial as we would like if we think
of things like Elkhorn shark cartilage
all kinds of other different supplements
out there again these are completely
unproven and are likely doing nothing
for your pet but even the best
supplement in the world isn't going to
be enough to keep your dog or your cat
comfortable as their arthritis
progresses so you shouldn't think that
because you're giving supplements you're
doing all you can
up next is exercise management now
clearly exercise is still very important
you want to make sure that your pet
stays mobile their joints don't seize up
and that their muscle mass is maintained
and doesn't just waste away to nothing
but like I mentioned when it came to
environmental modification we want to
avoid really high impact activities so
make sure that you're not overdoing it
your pet isn't having to do too much
they're not chasing after a ball which
puts them through all kinds of stress
and strains when they're rapidly
accelerating stopping turning try and
make sure that they're not jumping when
you're taking them out for a walk short
and regular is much better than long an
occasional up next is complimentary
therapies and that ties in to exercise
management because the most common ones
here are physiotherapy or hydrotherapy
so they're designed to help maintain
muscle mass which helps stabilize joints
help keep your pet mobile and supple and
reduces inflammation there are lots of
other alternative therapies that are
again unproven unfortunately there's a
lot of things out there that will claim
huge benefits but they'll rely on
unreliable testimonials and there's
actually no hard data to show there's a
benefit to them in the treatment of
arthritis and then we've got pain
killing medication now make no mistake
giving your pet an anti-inflammatory
painkiller gives them the best chance of
living a pain-free happy life now there
are a few important steps that we need
to take when we're giving pain killers
we need to make sure that they are
generally in good health that their
kidneys are not struggling that their
liver is working well we need to monitor
them closely for side-effects and we
need to make sure that we're giving the
right dose at the right interval but for
the vast majority of cases there's going
to be no problem and your pet is
probably not going to be any different
now if a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory
isn't appropriate and there are cases
where that is the case then there are
other pain killers that we can give
things like gabapentin amantadine
paracetamol in dogs but definitely not
cats and don't be afraid of giving
several drugs if that's what's needed to
keep your pet as happy and comfortable
as possible especially if you're taking
all of these other steps to do exactly
that
and then once you've got your treatment
plan in place you need to monitor modify
maintain so you need to monitor for the
effect that it's having you need to
modify it if it's not having the effect
that you want it to and then maintain
the treatment that you're giving don't
think because everything's working you
can slacken off arthritis is a
progressive disease and unfortunately
it's going to get worse with time rather
than better so the chances are you're
going to need to ramp up your treatment
at some point in the future now if you
want to dive into each of these topics
in more detail I've got a free arthritis
course and I'll leave the link on
now so definitely check that out I've
got an another arthritis video on screen
as well you can click on to watch but
until next time I'm dr. Alex this is our
pets health because they're family
