The word pain sure has a lot of different meanings to everyone, but in our animal companions it means/feels like one thing – disruption to living their best life.  As our pets age, pain can become an “all the sudden” occurrence or even a slow growing annoyance. A common cause of pain is osteoarthritis and this is something that we don’t want to overlook and sometimes is hard to recognize because many times it is slowly progressing. A lot of times, the old adage of “oh, he/she is just slowing down” as our companion’s age is a sign that there is underlying pain and we can help!  When pain comes on suddenly, typically an injury is to blame. Regardless there are treatments that can help and should be considered so our loyal loving companions can act like themselves and live life in comfort.

Sometimes the way to address pain is simply in adding in a supplement to help improve joint health.  There are a variety of joint supplements available and sometimes one supplement works best for our cat/dog over another so there can be a bit of a trial when it comes to joint supplements.

 Other times as in our aging patients, joint supplements alone are not enough and we need the help of anti-inflammatories or pain medications when they are in pain.  The importance of a physical exam cannot be stressed enough when considering adding supplements or medications to our pet’s daily regimen. Sometimes it isn’t until a physical exam is performed that we find there has been underlying pain/discomfort happening. This rings true for both cats and dogs and helps determine what a safe way to address pain will be for each individual.  Cats in particular can be very elusive in more ways than one. Cats are masters at hiding discomfort in many instances and if it were not for the manual flexing and extending of their limbs and and monitoring of signals given during physical exams, many times feline arthritis or even some chronic injuries would go undiagnosed. Since there are a number of changes that occur with aging (absorption of medications, digestion of foods etc.), it is best to make sure follow up/recheck examinations also happen as these are ways in which we can catch or identify problems and change our plan for bringing your pet comfort as needed as they become more “seasoned”.