CHICAGO, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The common practice of prescribing oral opioids for dogs in pain should be reexamined, as such drugs do not work well in dogs, according to a news release posted on the website of the University of Illinois (UI) on Monday.
"We have lots of good evidence that dogs respond favorably to injectable opioids," said UI veterinary anesthesiologist Stephanie Keating, a pain management expert in veterinary clinical medicine and a co-creator of the program. "But the same is not true for the opioid tramadol when given orally."
The way dogs absorb and metabolize oral tramadol may hinder the drug's pain-reducing effects, Keating said. And yet, many veterinarians routinely prescribe this drug in pill form for dogs when they leave the hospital after surgery or other traumatic events.
"For years, we assumed that since tramadol worked in people, it would also work in dogs," Keating said. "It's inexpensive, it's easy to prescribe, and so it became commonplace."
But research suggests that dogs don't benefit from the oral versions of the drugs the way people do, she said.
When a dog is hospitalized and in acute pain, intravenous opioid administration is one of the best pain management options available. But IV drugs are not an option for an animal at home.
"What veterinarians prescribe for dogs at home depends on the cause and duration of pain that dogs are experiencing," Keating said. "If a dog has a chronic inflammatory condition like arthritis, a multimodal approach that includes veterinary-specific anti-inflammatories may be the best option."
Anticipating the need among opioid prescribers for additional training to meet regulatory mandates, Keating and her colleagues created the continuing educational program with the i-Learning Center at UI College of Veterinary Medicine.
"To combat the human opioid epidemic, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is in the process of mandating training programs for opioid prescribers to help reduce unnecessary prescriptions," said Maureen McMichael, a specialist in small animal emergency and critical care at UI. "This course is designed to address these issues on the veterinary side of the equation."
