As many of you are aware I was at the European Avian and Exotic animal conference a short time ago. That conference is always interesting with lots of research and new developments in the field of exotic animal medicine.  This conference had some great highlights on developments in pain control of our reptile and small mammal patients.   Dosages and research on the effectiveness of local anesthetics was available.  This is great news, because local anesthetics can help prevent ‘wind up’, and are an important part of pre-emptive analgesia.  General anesthetics and sedatives don’t necessarily provide pain relief, so if pain control is not started before surgery, the animal can wake up to a whole pile of pain signals waiting and ready at their brain.  This results in two problems.  The first is that we now have to try to smooth recovery and get rid of all that pain they are feeling, the second problem is that they become hypersensitive to pain so that the body starts to over react to even minor stimulus.  By starting pain control before we do the surgery (pre-emptively) the animal doesn’t have a pile of pain signals waiting for them when they wake up. They can recover quietly and comfortably, and then we only need to keep control of any minor pain and normal (un-sensitized) nerves as the pain drugs start to wear off.  A lot less medication is needed overall improving safety, and everyone is happier and feels a lot better!  It was great news to finally have some drug dosages and studies in these small animals to find effective dosages that result in a reasonable blood level of medication. 

We never want any of our pets to be in pain.  Thankfully, more and more we are getting the tools and the dosages in order to make sure our furry and scaly friends live pain free and happy.