Arthritic old dog

17 October 2023, 07:21 PM

wtg

Arthritic old dog

So Raffi has arthritis. He's somewhere between 16 and 17, so not surprising.

About a year ago it seemed like his movement was getting pretty stiff, so we put him on a super low dose of Rimadyl/carprofen and it seemed to help a tad, but not a miracle by any means.

Recently we started to notice him really slowing down and not eating as well as usual and suspected that the med was catching up with his GI tract. We took him off of it and he has improved tons. Energy is better and his appetite is back to normal. And his movement is no worse than it was when he was on carprofen, so it was a good decision to get him off that med.

Raffi came to us with a bottle of gabapentin that his foster parents weren't giving him. I guess using it for arthritis pain is technically an off-label use for the drug, but quite common. We tried one capsule early on and it knocked him out completely. I think he slept for 12 hours straight. I never tried it on him again but recently read that sometimes the sleepiness side effect is temporary and goes away after a few days as the animal acclimates to the drug.

Does anyone have experience with gabapentin for pain, either for yourself or for a pet? Did it help for pain? How were the side effects?

--------------------------------
We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training

17 October 2023, 07:32 PM

AdagioM

We pre-medicate our cats with gabapentin before vet visits; they are not good patients. (They “decline to be handled.”)

Calvin gets really mellow and cuddly on it. Although he’s pretty cuddly anyway.

I’m wondering if you could reduce the dosage and maybe there would be pain relief without so much sleepiness?

17 October 2023, 07:39 PM

wtg

I tried him at half the smallest dose you can get (100 mg capsule, I think?) and he got the sleepies. It comes in capsules, I bought some empty capsules and actually weighed out a half dose on my jewelry scale. I'm not sure I could do a quarter dose.

Raffi is not a good patient, but he almost never goes to the vet. I'll have to remember the gabapentin if I have to take him in for some reason! Thanks for the tip.

17 October 2023, 07:40 PM

ShiroKuro

Is this a new(ish) dog for you? (apologies if I missed the details)

17 October 2023, 07:46 PM

wtg

No, this is our elderly rescue pup that we got in March 2021. Besides the arthritis (which has been an issue from day 1), he pretty much can't hear anything, isn't well housebroken, and he bites. Other than that, he's a great little dog.

Steve mentioned glucosamine and chondroitin a while back, but I'm wondering how much good that would do at this point. I probably should try it.

17 October 2023, 08:04 PM

ShiroKuro

Ahh, ok, I think I remember. I hope he doesn't bite very badly! The rest of it seems like you could work around.

17 October 2023, 09:59 PM

AdagioM

quote:
Originally posted by wtg:
I tried him at half the smallest dose you can get (100 mg capsule, I think?) and he got the sleepies. It comes in capsules, I bought some empty capsules and actually weighed out a half dose on my jewelry scale. I'm not sure I could do a quarter dose.

Raffi is not a good patient, but he almost never goes to the vet. I'll have to remember the gabapentin if I have to take him in for some reason! Thanks for the tip.

Gabapentin also comes in liquid form, so it’s even more divisible. I can’t get pills into the cats, but I’m pretty good with the squirty syringe.

For vet visits, it’s a dose the evening before, and then another one 2 hours before the visit.

17 October 2023, 11:06 PM

Steve Miller

Dallas was on Gabapentin for the last year of his life. It allowed to function fairly normally right up to the end and I don’t recall there being any side effects. He did sleep more than he did before but that’s not unusual for old dogs.

Hope it works for Raffi.

18 October 2023, 05:10 PM

Steve Miller

As for pills, I've started wrapping them in Braunschweiger. Sam can pick a pill out of a gob of cream cheese but the Braunschweiger is sticky enough he swallows it every time.

Aldi sells it cheap.

20 December 2023, 07:30 PM

wtg

So we tried gabapentin (our vet compounded it as a liquid so I could administer a very low dose), but it didn't agree with Raffi's tummy. Was also very sedating, even at an extraordinarily low dose. Too bad, because it did help the arthritis. Which is getting worse, so...

We had him at the vet yesterday and he got a shot of Librela. It's a very new monoclonal antibody that targets the pain of osteoarthritis in dogs. There's a similar product for cats.

https://www.avma.org/news/mono...-veterinary-patients

Our vet is an odd mix of high tech medicine (stem cells and such) and alternative therapies like Traditional Chinese Medicine (both acupuncture and herbs). Dr Chris is really good at working with clients, giving great advice and information that's matched to the animal and to the owner. He's really amazing. We rarely go for the high tech, new approach (Librela has only been out for a few months, though it's been used in the EU for a couple of years), but Raffi is getting to the point where he can't go on much longer like this. Too many days where he's really struggling. Dr Chris has had very good results with the limited number of dogs and cats he's tried this on. Results from the EU are very encouraging.

Anyway, thought I'd pass along the info about the monoclonal antibodies for general info. Dr Chris says he thinks they could really be a game changer for management of OA.

20 December 2023, 07:32 PM

wtg

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Miller:
As for pills, I've started wrapping them in Braunschweiger. Sam can pick a pill out of a gob of cream cheese but the Braunschweiger is sticky enough he swallows it every time.

Aldi sells it cheap.

Mr wtg buys that Braunschweiger! But I don't think he puts his pills in it... he just schmears it on rye bread...

20 December 2023, 07:46 PM

Doug

1) I really hope the Librela works for Raffi.
2) I am also hoping we can avoid a copycat of of this thread topic…

20 December 2023, 08:14 PM

QuirtEvans

I take gabapentin for restless leg, and my vet has prescribed it for my cats when they travel ... the vet says it's safer than Xanax.

It does not bother my stomach, sorry that it bothers Raffi's. Maybe he'd adjust to it? I know that anything new that you introduce to a dog takes a period of adjustment.

My daughter used to take gabapentin. Her psychiatrist, at the time, worried mightily about the side effects of every single medication, but when it came to gabapentin, she said, that's about the safest thing out there, I wouldn't worry about side effects.