Treating acute pain of medical conditions (Proceedings)

There are many medical conditions that can be quite painful, and are often forgotten in our pursuit to cure the disease. Common among these are eye pain, urinary cystitis, pancreatitis, renal uroliths, anal sac infection and acute moist dermatitis.

Not only do we want to treat these painful conditions for pain's sake, but we also want to prevent the occurrence of maladaptive pain syndromes such as wind-up pain, central sensitization, hyperalgesia and alodynia.

Selection of treatment modality needs the consideration of the overall health of the patient, how painful the condition might be (pancreatitis v cystitis, e.g.), the location of the problem (somatic v. visceral) and inflammatory pain v. neuropathic pain.

Common methods to treat these types of pain may include NSAID's, gabapentin, tricyclics, tramadol, oxycodone, acetaminophen, topical steroids, acupuncture, and TENS

Excellent sources for pain management include the Handbook of Veterinary Pain Management Edited by Gaynor and Muir, www.ivapm.org and The North American Companion Animal Formulary, by Ned Kuehn