Veterinary Pharmacy Resource
Started by JWells488
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Troll? I hope so.
Don't give your dog ibuprofen.
Don't give your dog ibuprofen.
nope. not a troll. Can you explain why?
And do you know a source for veterinary pharmacy doses?
because it can easily cause severe GI bleeding and kidney damage (which can quickly lead to death-i've seen it happen). animals and people are very different when it comes to drugs and dosages. you need to be talking to a licensed veterinarian about OTC medications as many of them can be extremely harmful. for example, people can eat grapes, chocolate, onions, etc without any real consequences (provided theres no allergy) while these can be highly toxic and even fatal in animals. while these examples aren't necessarily drug related, they're good for driving home just how different the physiology is.
if you don't like what your vet has to say, i recommend getting a second opinion and not trying to dose your pet yourself. you could end up seriously harming or killing your pet.
as for the pharmacy reference guide, as far as i know, the only online veterinary pharmacy stuff is accessible by veterinarians and veterinary students only. sorry!
good luck!
Thanks for the info.
I ask because I've seen it prescribed many times to dogs at the pharmacy where I work.
Ibuprofen and acetominophen are the top 2 poisonings in dogs and cats according to the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center. These are generally administered by well-meaning owners who nonetheless don't understand that dogs are not small, furry people.
So you need to contact someone with training and experience in pharmacology of dogs, in other words, a veterinarian.
So you need to contact someone with training and experience in pharmacology of dogs, in other words, a veterinarian.
My dog has been to a vet. She was prescribed rimadyl, but I have seen dogs get ibuprofen before (prescribed by other vets), so I thought that an NSAID with mixed COX action would be fine. I didn't give it because I wanted to make sure it was safe and get the correct dosage.
I'm not doing surgery here. I am sure that there are guidelines that can be followed and if they are available, I can easily find an appropriate drug for a given condition.
I appreciate that you are trying to do what's best for you dog, but I'm still going to disagree.
The implication would seem to be that appropriate drug therapy does not require the adequate training and professional judgement that surgery would, including adequately assessing the risk:benefit ratio. Since you are a pharmacy student, I would be surprised if you believed that were true for your patients. So you shouldn't be surprised when we feel the same for our patients.
So I still think the best thing for you and your dog is to follow the advice of the attending veterinarian.
The implication would seem to be that appropriate drug therapy does not require the adequate training and professional judgement that surgery would, including adequately assessing the risk:benefit ratio. Since you are a pharmacy student, I would be surprised if you believed that were true for your patients. So you shouldn't be surprised when we feel the same for our patients.
So I still think the best thing for you and your dog is to follow the advice of the attending veterinarian.
as a pharmacy student, you ought to know that it can be just as harmful to give a drug as it is to just cut open an animal. in the case of ibuprofen, bleeding disorders and renal failure can be life threatening very quickly. sometimes you can turn the damage around, sometimes you can't. in the last 3ish weeks, i've seen 4 renal failure cases (none were drug-induced though) and 3 of the 4 either died or were euthanized humanely before they died. so yeah, you're not randomly cutting out organs and such, but you can do just as much harm either almost as quickly or as quickly with improper pharmacology.
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Then why didn't you ask your vet if it was acceptable, and what dose you should give?
I think it speaks pretty poorly of your belief in the profession you will be entering if you expect a stranger who doesn't know you or your dog to recommend that you give your dog any specific medications. As a vet, I would never recommend to any person to give their dog (neither of which I know) any medication - even an OTC one - or tell them how much would be appropriate. It's a direct violation of veterinary regulations and professional ethics.
Call and ask your vet.
You may be forgetting or not realize the extent to which metabolism, effects, and side effects of drugs differ between species - absorption, distribution, excretion, receptor binding and selectivity (including COX selectivity), toxicity, etc., all depend on species. Even for similar situations, the NSAID, antibiotic, etc., chosen for a human is likely to be different from that chosen for a dog, which is different from that chosen for a cat or horse or cow, because the average risk : potential benefit ratio for each drug differs between species. That's why vet school is different from med school and why human medical professionals should not attempt to treat animals when there is veterinary help available, and vice versa.
I'm also not sure why you want to ignore the advice of the veterinary professional you paid to treat your dog so that you, knowing virtually nothing about veterinary medicine or veterinary pharmacology, can make your own treatment plan with the help of strangers on the Internet. As stated above, if you don't trust your vet, get a second opinion.
BTW, carprofen appears to be somewhat COX-2 prefential in dogs, as opposed to other species in which it is non-selective.
Good luck with your dog.
I'm also not sure why you want to ignore the advice of the veterinary professional you paid to treat your dog so that you, knowing virtually nothing about veterinary medicine or veterinary pharmacology, can make your own treatment plan with the help of strangers on the Internet. As stated above, if you don't trust your vet, get a second opinion.
BTW, carprofen appears to be somewhat COX-2 prefential in dogs, as opposed to other species in which it is non-selective.
Good luck with your dog.
P.S. If by this you mean that the pharmacists are telling owners to give their dogs ibuprofen--then THIS IS ILLEGAL as it is practicing veterinary medicine without a license.
And if that dog died because of acute GI hemorrhage and/or renal failure--which are HUGE RISKS which is why the VETERINARY-SPECIFIC NSAIDS are such a big business--then the PHARMACIST could be LIABLE.
I call BS on this. A vet repeatedly prescribing ibuprofen for a dog in leiu of the approved, available drugs, which are *much* safer and with better efficacy, for no reason, should be stripped of their license.
The only way ibuprofen should EVER be prescribed is is VERY specific circumstances, if the other drugs are completely unavailable (I can't even imagine a situation like that in the developed world, tbh). And there are serious consequences about its metabolism in dogs that makes it a very dangerous substitute - much more so than carprofen.
I highly doubt it is happening "many times". You're either lying, or the vets in your area are nuts.
This bears repeating and bolding.
SDN is not for medical advice. Closing thread.
And please go see your veterinarian and DO NOT give your dog ibuprofen.
And please go see your veterinarian and DO NOT give your dog ibuprofen.
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