Have you ever had a surgery such as a C-section or a hernia repair or have you even just had your wisdom teeth pulled? If you have had surgery or major dental work, your doctor almost certainly provided serious pain relief. You probably received IV pain relievers before, during and after your surgery for a few days and you were likely sent home with a bottle of narcotic pain relievers or a pain relief patch to wear. If it was a major surgery with a lot of pain, chances are good that for at least a few days you ran right to the medicine cabinet as soon as your last dose wore off.

Pain Warning Signs
Your pet might be in pain if he shows one or more of these signs:

• Shaking or Trembling
• Increased Heart Rate
• Decreased Appetite
• Acts Needy
• Acts Reclusive
• Acts Unusually Aggressive
• Whining or Moaning

Our pets feel pain just like we do but they can't help themselves to pain relief so they count on us to help them. At Animal Medical Center, we won't let your pet suffer in silence because we make sure to treat pain as the serious condition it is. It just isn't right to do a major operation such as a spay or neuter without treating the post-operative pain. Not only is relieving pain simply the right thing to do for our beloved pets, proper pain relief also contributes to faster healing and happier pets who aren't so traumatized by the vet's office that they quake in fear every time you cross our threshold!

Pain control is an essential part of the treatment plan for every pet. Whenever pain is an issue, our veterinarian will develop a customized pain control plan for your pet by considering the type of surgery, the age and health of your pet and your own preferences about how you prefer to administer pain control at home. Pain medication is typically begun before the surgery starts and then continued afterwards for a few days.

For each stage of treatment, the veterinarian carefully selects the right combination of medicines for your pet from a wide variety of available drugs. Modern veterinary medicine, just like human medicine, offers a wide variety of sophisticated medicines for our pets. Sometimes your pet can be sent home wearing a patch that delivers strong pain control for several days so you don't even have to give your pet pills!

In the past, some people, (even veterinarians!) believed that pets didn't really feel pain and that pain relief wasn't important. Just a generation ago, doctors claimed that young children didn't feel pain either! It comes as no surprise to those of us who have taken our kids in for their vaccinations that science has proven that pets and children do feel pain just like us grown ups.

In fact, studies have shown that effective pain relief leads to faster healing, better outcomes and, of course, kids and pets who aren't so terrified of the doctors they depend on!