meds for pain

[tricia307]

what can you recommend in human meds for a pain reliever for a cat?

[FurballsMom]

For sure.  Cats are at least 10 times smaller than a SMALL adult human female.  What is given to us is too much for such a small animal.  For example:  The amount of Zyrtec I was told to give to Akira is only 1/4 of the adult human dosage.  This is much smaller than the children's dosage, which is 1/2 of the adult human dosage.  I would never ever give medications to Akira without her first seeing her doctor.  I do know that no one should ever give Tylenol to their pets.  Tylenol is definitely toxic to both dogs and cats.  In fact, some of us humans can't even take the stuff.  Too much is toxic for our livers, so one can only imagine why it's so harmful to our much smaller dogs and cats.  Plus, dogs and cats metabolize Tylenol much differently than humans do, which is why it can kill them.

Care has to be taken with Tramadol, too.  I ended up being allergic to it myself, so I would say it's possible for animals to be allergic to medications, too.  Just one adult human Tramadol made me just as sleepy and had just as slurred speech as the actual opiates.  That wasn't even the allergic reaction either.  It's just something to keep in mind, since the medications we take are human dosages.  Like opus88 said, our pets are often smaller than ourselves and they metabolize the drugs differently than we do.

[opus88]

oh FOR SURE THESE ARE VET PRESCRIBED and NOT anyone just using their own prescriptions.....Vets use human meds as well as animal specific meds....
NEVER EVER give your meds to any animal...the difference in weight/size and metabolism will vary tremendously between us and them.....
ALWAYS follow a dosage laid out by your Vet.....than fill out the kitties rx at your human pharmacy...
Jeez I sure hope this original poster wasn't considering doing his own prescribing...could well be fatal for a cat, Yes Opiates need to be handled with utmost care!!!!!

[robinlove]

  Do you know what the source of your cats pain is?
Human meds especially pain have to be given in precise doses (vet should help with this)
Cats and dogs can be unintentialy overdosed. They all react differently.
Fentanyl is an extremely strong opiate! I have been on it personally.   I fell asleep standing up!
I believe in some cases they also use Morphine.  I have to look up metacam must be new.

[FurballsMom]

Thanks for the information.  I saved the PDF in case I need it in the future.

[opus88]

okay went back and did some hunting. this is a quote:
"there are many side effects with using pain meds for cats however based on all avail info at this time the ones with the fewest side effects and safest for cats are the following.....

Buprenorphine(buprenex)
Butorphanol(torbutrol, torbugesic)
Tramadol(Ultram)
Fentanyl(duragesic)

probably the worst one I've read about is metacam, this one can cause blindness among other problems...beware, many Vets still use it!!

heres a good pdf on Pain in Cats...hope this helps...

http://www.catvets.com/uploads/PDF/Pain%20Management%20Guidelines_FINAL.pdf

[opus88]

I've read on holistic info sites that BUPRENORPHINE is the best and SAFEST pain med for cats....I know thats the one my Vet uses too.
Is this for long term use? -(