You have no idea which drugs they gave the pet in the hospital; Deramaxx may, when used with one of the hospital-dispensed drugs [for this event], cause a reaction.

And just because the pet had been tested before for any sensitivity to Deramaxx it is no assurance that the same conditions apply now.

:)

I asked hubby if the vet even offered him the choice. (Which we would have turned down since we have some Deramaxx on hand for all our dogs.) He said nope. The dog was clearly in some pain, so we medicated him.

I’m not alarmed. Not even surprised. Go to one vet, you get pain killers post-procedure. Go to another vet across town (or in a different city) and you won’t. There’s no consistency.

Maybe the younger graduates from vet. schools will address pain in animals more completely.
Some animals will hide their pain, but they hurt, nonetheless.

Yes, indeed you did. We ALL went into it in great detail. We essentially told you that your empirical views were short-sighted. You’re tenaciously holding to the believe that an animal must demonstrate that he’s in pain before relief in the form of a pain pill is given. Poor, poor animal.

What does “the actual record says otherwise” refer to? Bernie, you need to be more specific.

You will remember, of course, that I’m the one that brought up the issue of CEU’s as a requirement for vets, especially old vets. Everytime I turn around my vet is off to a conference.

Even mild forms of surgery often end with pain. Perhaps you’ve never experienced this. I’ve had staples in my abdomen and it hurt. And if I hurt, you’d better believe it REALLY hurts the next guy. But here’s the bottom line: WOULD YOU WANT YOUR PET TO SUFFER EVEN ONE SECOND IN PAIN IF IT COULD BE AVOIDED?

Pain causes stress. Period. You don’t get to debate that. Read the beginning of this article to understand the connection and negative effects of pain.

http://www.long-beach.med.va.g.....pmp-6.html

There’s one key sentence in article above: “…the physical and mental/emotional tension created by pain tends to worsen the pain.”

Taking the pain pill prevents the vicious cycle and downward spiral from happening. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Don’t keep your mind in a cavern, Bernie. There’s far, far too much current scientific literature out there that supports pain management.

The course is given by Dr. Narda Robinson who is a license veterinarian and believes is humane treatment for animals.

It’s about the documented scientific facts that pain hinders healing, and how those findings are slowly working into veterinary medicine.

As for waiting for signs of distress, why can you not take it as pretty darn obvious that having eight staples in your butt hurts? I don’t have to see the dog — and in fact didn’t before questioning the post-op pain-management protocol — to know she was going to be hurting that night.

Minor pain? Who knows, and who cares? Pain is pain.

I don’t understand your pain-med phobia, but I see pain meds as another weapon in the medical arsenal. Can you go without them? Sure. But you can go without antibiotics for an infection, too, and you may well heal on your own.

But why would you?

I suspect you have an idea like the woman mentioned above, that pain meds are somehow evil or immoral, a sign of weakness and something to be feared. You’ve said as much before, talking about how we “city folk” are such wimps.

That moral nonsense is widespread attitude; heck my own father has it. “Play with pain” has been his mantra since he was a professional athlete in the ’50s. (By the way, he’s as “city folk” as they come, born and raised in San Francisco.)

It may well be that my attitude towards “the goodies” as you so revealingly call them is based on my lack of interest in post-op pain for myself and so, by extension, for my pets.

But wherever our attitudes comes from, science is on my side. And this won’t even be debatable in another decade.