Arthritis~ Librela, Cartrophen, Amantadine

[Missingmyusername]

Does anyone use any or all of these for arthritis? How did you find them?
Do you prefer one over the other?
Stem cell therapy sounds interesting but not sure what it involves.

Ddog takes Galliprant, Librela and Cartrophen. Also takes human paracetamol (vet said to give it to him) and today vet mentioned perhaps Ketamine or Amantadine too. Just sounds an awful lot of medication!

Ddog is 12, manages 2 short walks per day, eats well, plays and potters about. Just want him as comfortable and pain free as possible but not spaced out! He did has Gabapentin but it seems to make him sleep all day.

Our 13 year old black lab is on norbrook carprieve50mg seems OK just on that walks 4 miles a day. Not perfect does stumble a bit but OK.

If gabapentin makes him very sleepy has his kidney function been checked? It’s cleared by the kidneys.

Ours is 14 and just has librella. It works well but does wear off at the end of each month.

Have you tried antinol? It's a supplement that is having massively good effects.
My Labrador is on it and she's gone from being grumpy and in pain to bouncing about completely pain free. (I do really restrict what she does now so as not to make things worse).

But I highly recommend it. We were offered librella but I was worried about the side effects so tried antinol first and it's been amazing. I've got several friends who are using it too and they have also seen huge improvements in their dogs.

I’ve used Amanradine on a dog before, it didn’t agree with him, but it seems to work with the other drugs as I remember it, like you’d only ever add it in not use it as a standalone.

I’d have thought switching the paracetamol to pardale would have made more sense than ketamine?

The gabapentin? How long did you try it for? IME it makes them sleepy for a few days and then they’re ok again.

They have different functions to tackle different types of pain pathways so having a bit of a cocktail is often more effective. It's a good idea to get blood tests to keep check on organ functions.
My dog had galliprant, paracetamol and gabapentin and did well on it. Cartrophen did a few courses and didn't show noticeable difference but worked great for my other dog who had less joints affected.
Gabapentin gets a bit of bad reputation as can make drowsy or wobbly while body adjusts but often this can be mitigated by titrating from lower dose to desired level but vets may not realise to do it that way. It maybe you need to tweak the dosage/frequency if still drowsy after while of being on it.

She had ketamine injection at the specialist, its microdosing and is thought to be quite effective. My vet suggested paracetamol over pardale as thinks the codeine ratio is bit off and doesn't seem to be more effective.

https://caninearthritis.co.uk/managing-arthritis/common-medications/

There was arthramid a synthetic joint fluid injection which some find effective, but as insurance would cover stem cell treatment I opted for that as it's all your dogs cells so less likely to cause any reactions and is helping to repair not just grease.

My dog was actually older than yours and had loads of joints/areas to treat, I had a good idea what as she'd previously had x-rays and physio session but the place I used do a series of assessments to make sure they treat all necessary areas to be able to remove/reduce pain effectively.

The most invasive bit is taking a small fat sample from abdomen and blood which is then sent to lab to culture the stem cells which takes about 4-6wk. This is stored and more cells can be re-cultured at a later date if necessary.
For implantation they take bloods to whip up Platelet Rich Plasma, remove some joint fluid and then inject stem cells & PRP in. They can be little stiff day or 2 after and are on restricted exercise plan for some weeks to give the cells best chance to renovate. My girl had some extra lameness during recovery which vet said was unusual but also coincided with winter, after her top up injections few months later she was feeling well pretty quickly and didn't want to be sensible.
It made her much more comfortable and was enjoying running about although restricted as I didn't want her to knacker herself as it's never going to be able to reverse poor conformation or wonky healed fracture so will always. I wish I'd thought to do it sooner

This has quite in-depth info
https://www.stemcellsscotland.co.uk/

Thank you all, I’ll have a look at the other medications and supplements and discuss with vet.

To answer a couple of questions.
I’ve not heard of Antinol or Carprieve so will look at those thank you.
He’s had some advanced bloods done just before a TPLO and kidney function is fine, they didn’t mention any issues. He recovered well, but said he’s full of arthritis, even his toes.

Vet mentioned something about the codeine in Pardale V and just said use paracetamol. We were using Pardale as another vet had prescribed it but new vet said no.

Gabapentin - he wakes up throughout the night barking (he never barks). We get up to see what he wants and found him staring at walls. We tried the course of tablets (100 I think) and it just didn’t seem to agree with him. I would be reluctant to try it again, as we stopped the tablets and the behaviour stopped. As he was awake so much he slept most of the day. Vet didn’t seem concerned but we were, as we had a nocturnal dog!

He’s now on the sixth Librela jab and it hasn’t seemed to have much of an effect, negative or positive. Reluctant to stop it in case it’s having a mild affect. His arthritis is very bad and as there are no negative effects thought we’ll just keep going with it.

Thank you for the stem cell info I’ll have a read through on my lunch hour tomorrow.

He does suffer with IBS so can’t take yumove or Metacam as he’s up all night crying and needing to use the toilet.
He likes it when we massage his legs and hip area, not sure it helps but he enjoys the contact.

Galliprant is only good for mild-moderate pain - I’d change to Previcox and add in Amantidine as it enhances the NSAID

Also hydrotherapy and physio

I wasn’t questioning the paracetamol btw, just in my head switching that to pardale made more sense than adding in something else.

But not a vet... I was just thinking, same amount of tablets 😂

@tabulahrasa lol 😂 I know, I was thinking if he has any more tablets he’s going to be rattling!