Quick question - can I give my dog extra painkiller?

[LaurieFairyCake]

She was spayed yesterday and she's on painkiller twice a day. It's quite clearly working for about 3-4 hours and then she's in discomfort again.

Is it possible to give her more? She looks miserable now, it's 4 hours since her last one.

Phone your vet's out of hours service and get their advice over the phone. They can check the maximum dose for that specific medication.

I phoned them and got the out of hours service who wanted me to drive an hour away and pay to see an emergency vet.

No advice really apart from that. She's on 15mg of Carprieve twice a day- does anyone know if it's fine to give her an extra 5mg? Or what the issue would be?

They actually said they didn't give advice and my actual vets told me to call the out of hours service for advice

I think my vets might be paying a load of money for an out of hours service that doesn't actually do anything but tell you to drive to a vets that's open

I'm a vet. It's impossible to say whether you can give extra without knowing her weight. There is a safe maximum daily dose in mg per kg. Exceeding this makes side effects much more likely, most commonly gut bleeding and ulceration.

No you can't give additional carprieve - and it's unlikely to have any effect and could have side effects

What signs of pain is she showing?

Do you know - or could you find out - her exact weight? You could look up max dose per weight. Not saying you should do this, but have to say this is what I would be thinking about doing... not a vet and this is probably massively irresponsible.
By googling I easily found max daily mg dosage per kg of dog.

She's 9.5 kilos.

She looks fine for the first 3 plus hours after the painkiller - engaged, normal. After that she just looks miserable. I can't express it differently than that. She's just subdued.

Thank you all for your responses. You're very kind to take the time to respond.

Could you say why it's unlikely to have effect?

Thank you also saying to look it up - it appears she is allowed 36mg a day if she weighs 9 kilos (she weighs 9.5).

Maybe speak to your vets tomorrow about a different / additional painkiller if she's still sore in the morning. I'd also mention the lack of advice from OOH as that's not great!

It's unlikely to have an effect because carprueve isn't dose-dependent once you're in the correct dose range, and it's duration of action is up to 12 hours. So if she's not responding well to it then giving more won't improve her response and increases risks of side effects.

She would need an additional painkiller that acts in a different way. Sorry she's not well

The thing is that it does look like she's responding well for a few hours and then after that she's pacing, turning over, trying different places to lie down - it's why I'm wondering if the dose wasn't quite high enough?

I will take her tomorrow, thank you very much for your advice. You've all been a lot more useful than the phone service my vet is paying for.

After several painkillers gave my dog bad episodes of colitis my vet told me to give paracetamol. Apparently even though paracetamol isn't licensed for dogs co-codamol is so it's still safe? Had a quick google though and doesn't look like it's usually recommended.

Please don't ever give an animal human medication unless on specific advice from the vet responsible for it's care.