At Celtic Creatures Vet Clinic we take a multimodal approach to pain management. This means that patients often receive a combination of medications to better control their pain and target if from different pharmacological approaches. Each individual patient has a drug protocol specifically tailored to their needs based on the in-clinic observations made by both the Vets and RVTs. The level of pain control for each patient is adjusted as needed throughout the day to be sure they have adequate pain control when in our veterinary clinic.
We implement a wide variety of pain management methods from intermittent dosing (via oral, intermuscular, or intravenous), to Constant rate infusions (CRIs), as well as local blocks.
Intermittent dosing of pain medication is beneficial in many circumstances as once the medication dosing starts to be metabolized and the effects start to decrease, we can determine it the patient still requires that level of pain medication or if a lower dose would be more beneficial.
CRIs are a very useful tool for patients whom we know have a high level of pain and require a more even level of control. A CRI allows us to constantly administer tiny doses of a medication to our patients allowing the level of the medication to remain constant within their blood. This means that the level of pain control stays the same over time and doesn’t decrease as the medication is metabolized as it does in intermittent dosing as the drug is constantly being delivered intravenously.
A local block acts to stop the pain signal from travelling from the injury/surgical site to the brain. This means that the patients do not register the sensation of being in pain at all. When used, a local block can help keep doses of other pain medications or anesthetic gasses lower, hence decreasing the side effects of these medications.
