[Ellie May]

Interesting that this has come up again when we don't even know what went wrong in this situation...

NSAIDs are the post-op drug of choice for soft tissue surgery here (most noticabley, spays). Rimadyl and Metacam are often used.

Ellie had taken Metacam before we knew about her liver problem. She did just fine with it. After we found out she had high bile acids, her vet knew NSAIDs were no longer the drug of choice (I didn't say anything either). And when there are questions about drugs and her liver, she opens a book! Ellie took buprenorphine after her spay and did okay although don't think it was great pain control for her. That said, if Ellie had a very painful ortho procedure done and her vet(s) thought the only thing that would work well would be an NSAID and they felt that the benefit outweighed the risk, then I would allow it.

I will "not" have my dog in that much pain just b/c I'm worried about her liver. If something else works, great, but that isn't always the case. And I don't go for the dogs need to be in pain after surgery theory. I have some thoughts about that and I won't go into them here, but we'll just leave it at I strongly disagree. I don't think Tramadol is a stand alone ortho drug, so I'm sure there are cases where NSAIDs have to be given even when tehre is a liver problem. I would explain my concerns and let the vet decide. If I didn't trust my vet to decide after talking wtih them, then I'd be finding a new one.

There was a report put out about Rimadryl and there may be a slight increase in side effects than other NSAIDs. I wouldn't have a problem using it for a few days post-op although I'd choose something else if I was there while the vet was filling it. That would be for a healthy dog...