My arthritic 6.5 year old Toller seems to be doing fine treating his aches with very conservative treatment so far - glucosamine (in his food) and such, along with MSM when the pain flares.
He’s seldom lame, but he has “episodes”, like the one we’re in right now, where I have to carry him down the stairs, feed him aspirin, and wait for the pain to pass.
I’m considering adding a new treatment option to our arsenal. I’m a bit apprehensive of Rimadyl. Some people have recommended Adequan Canine.
Does anyone have any experience with this injectible and their dog? What about the costs?
What is the active ingredient of Adequan? It’s not a name I’m familiar with, so chances are it’s called something else over here.
My elderly arthritic feline experiences good relief from a combination of Cartrophen (Pentosan polysulphate) and acupuncture. If you have a certified veterinary acupuncturist in your area, I can highly recommend it.
Metacam (meloxicam) is a similar class of drug to Rimadyl but is available in a liquid for easy dosing in food. It’s usually very well tolerated and has good efficacy for osteoarthritis. My cat will be going on this when her current regime isn’t cutting the mustard. NB it’s prescription only, though.
There are a lot of options these days for arthritic animals, and you should consider consulting your vet to work out a good pain management program for your Toller if you’re concerned about him.
If Adequan is the same drug as Cartrophen, it’s relatively cost effective (I paid $50 for a bottle that will last me a year or more treating my 4kg cat) but it’s not reccomended to give it as frequently as some pets need. You have to keep it in the fridge. I have also only noticed it being effective for about 24-48 hours after an injection, at the most.
I used to give my horse adequan. He got shots once a month, but at $50 a pop, anything more than that would have started to wear me down. I’m told there is a generic mix of it that works just as well, for half the price.
My vet strongly recomended it. In fact, several of the vets I know do. It helped my horse be able to move comfortably again. I also had a friend who used it for his dog, and also had great success with it. I recomend it.
Sounds like a good option, Intent… What scares me is the initial induction period which is a shot weekly for 6 weeks, then with dogs they kind of play it by ear. The vials are around 50$ or so, but they are multi-dose.
We used Adequan on our Rob Roy with good results. He broke a hock while racing, and it would bother him at times when he was older. I’m afraid I can’t remember how much it cost, but it worked and I don’t recall thinking it was prohibitively expensive. Rimadyl is expensive (we recently paid $60 US for a month’s supply of that), along with Deramaxx and all the other newer NSAIDs so you might want to call your vet, get prices and then decide. You are probably already aware that Adequan is basically a concentrated form of glucosamine, so the big advantage in using it is much less worry about side effects than with NSAIDs.
We here in the US only just recently got meloxicam on the market, but I’ve heard from Canadian and British dog owners that it works well for most dogs and seems to be well-tolerated. Here is the U.S. it would be expensive since it is new, but seeing as how it’s been around for awhile in other places the price is most likely more reasonable.
OK, after checking out the website, Adequan is a very similar drug to Cartrophen (although not the exact same thing) and so would work similarly well.
Cartrophen (and most likely Adequan) can work very well as part of a pain management strategy that uses a variety of different medications.
For example, a client we worked out a pain management plan with had a Border Collie who had severe osteoarthritis following a car accident. Her regime included glucosamine/chondroitin daily in the food, Cartrophen fortnightly (this kept her average pain level managed) and Rimadyl for when she was having a flare-up due to weather or activity. The client was able to reduce the Cartrophen to monthly with monthly acupuncture, and rarely needs the Rimadyl, and the dog has had her pain well controlled on this regime for 8 months now.