If drug is helping pet, it’s best to keep using it
Q: Our Goldendoodle, Savannah, has terrible skin allergies. To keep her from scratching and biting herself raw we have to give her an Apoquel pill every day and a Cytopoint injection every month. What worries me, though, is that we’ll probably have to give her medications for the rest of her life. Is this safe?
A: Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, our dogs often play the role of guinea pigs when we use medications over long periods of time. While these drugs are FDA approved and have been tested extensively for safety and efficacy, medications like Savannah’s haven’t been around long enough for us to know whether they have adverse effects over the long term.
Owners of pets with chronic diseases –– including arthritis, epilepsy, dry eye, heart valve disease and skin allergies, among others –– all face the prospect of lifelong medication. Though these conditions can’t be cured, these patients’ quality of life can be effectively maintained with pills, injections, ointments, etc.
We should be grateful to veterinary medicine for devising such amazing drugs, right? Yet, as humans, we always want more. In this case, we require some assurance that the products we rely on to treat them aren’t going to harm them –– at all.
While we have no way of knowing whether our pet will be the one who will develop an intolerance or suffer a major side effect, we should all go through the same rational process before electing to include frequent medications to our pets’ daily regimen.
1: Get a correct diagnosis. It goes without saying that a solid working diagnosis is required. If you don’t feel comfortable that you’ve exhausted all your resources in this effort, consider seeing a specialist.
2: Treat the underlying problem. In Savannah’s case, for example, the drugs you’re using control the itch, not the allergy itself. If possible (and it’s not always), either eliminating the source of the allergy or desensitizing her to the allergen with allergy vaccines is best.
3: Investigate the side effects. Do some simple research on your drugs. Use scholarly articles only. Stay away from websites spewing inflammatory venom about the drug.
4: Ask about non-traditional alternatives. In some cases, as with osteoarthritis, acupuncture and supplements (like CBD tinctures) can be beneficial.
If the drug in question works, please don’t discard it. After all, maintaining Savannah’s quality of life is absolutely worth the risk of a nebulous possibility.