September is Animal Pain Awareness month

This September is Pet Pain awareness month. Pain is probably the biggest worry for owners. Very understandably.

As owners we always wish our pets could talk and tell us what they are thinking and feeling. When something is wrong we worry immensely in case its serious. And if it does get serious we blame ourselves for not noticing sooner.

All these emotions are both normal and exhausting.

We want you to know you are not alone in these worries. There are people out there that can help in sensible and positive ways.

If you are worried about your pet and how they might be feeling, reach out and ask for help. You can call us, or your vets. Whoever you are most comfortable to ask first. We will all want to help.

This September we will keep posting nuggets of info to help.

Pain is a journey. No 2 days are the same. This makes it complicated to understand and to treat. But never give up. There is plenty that can be done.

Some of our content will be vlogs so watch our vlogs to see what we are sharing.

Pain is a subject true to the heart of an veterinary professional. Anyone wishes they had a magic wand and could irradiate it. We spend a huge number of hours learning more and keeping up to date on new and emerging drugs and modalities to reduce pain.

Interestingly, we also look backwards in time, as some of the oldest methods of pain control are seemingly impressive! Acupuncture is a great example of this. We are all looking for the evidence base for proof of how and why everything works. We recognise that science has a long way to go. Not everything is proven yet. Does that mean it those methods should not be explored? There are things that are not as safe as others and we would never recommend anything that is not safe. But we do recommend discussing all options with your vet or therapist so you have a good idea of what might work best. Strategies such as physio or acupuncture don’t yet have enough hard evidence behind them, but if you talk to people who have experience them, you rarely get a story that was not successful. Its all very interesting.