16/09/2020
🐾😣 September is animal pain awareness month! 😣🐾
(Of course, recognising and addressing pets in pain is vital at any time of year, but this gives us a chance to focus on this important topic.)
Pain is described as “an unpleasant sensory and/or emotional experience, related to actual or potential physical injury”. In other words it’s about what you can physically feel, and how you perceive and emotionally process it. It also doesn’t have to actually harm you, & emotional pain may be just as detrimental as physical pain.
Any animal can feel pain, at any age or life-stage. And - like us - all animals experience pain in an individual way. Pain may be worse under particular conditions, for example if you have other things causing you stress, or if your environment is difficult to navigate.
In older animals, pain is commonly caused by degenerating joints, osteoarthritis, general “wear and tear” on the body - accumulated over a lifetime, due to any kind of internal illness, or after a trauma which may have happened many years previously, etc. In these animals, “slowing down”, hesitating, appearing reluctant, & so on, may be seen. We may also put it down to “just getting old” – meaning that it is often missed, or not addressed appropriately.
In younger animals, pain may relate to dental disease, any kind of trauma or injury, or various other inciting causes – often related to high energy “youngster” activities. Again, pain may not be appropriately addressed in this population, as there may be a perception that they are robust, & will “get over it”.
In neither case is it a good idea to negate or ignore pain, or not to treat it proactively - we have the means to treat pain well, so we should!
Pain serves a purpose. Acute pain – the initial experience after an inciting injury - induces the animal to lay low and recover. It is nature’s way of allowing the body to heal. Some animals may get over their pain conditions without treatment, but – when acute pain goes untreated, is inappropriately treated, or pain is allowed to go on for long periods of time, ie after the initial injury has long healed - we get a condition known as chronic pain.
Animals adapt often to chronic pain, appearing “normal”, as they find ways to live with this condition. Therefore, it often goes unnoticed, and animals may suffer in silence, sometimes experiencing poor welfare for long periods of time. (Contrary to popular belief, animals do not roll around writhing, or vocalising, or limping overtly, when they are in pain – it is usually very subtle, until/unless the pet cannot cope – in which case it becomes unsubtle.)
As a Registered Veterinary Nurse & Certified Clinical Animal Behaviourist, I am always aware of the potential for pain to impact on the conditions that I see in my patients. Pain – particularly chronic pain - is an extremely common corollate of behaviour problems, including fear, aggression, destructiveness, lack of engagement, & more. In many cases pain is the cause of behaviour changes, and it may exacerbate existing anxieties. Pain and anxiety negatively influence each other, and can become a vicious circle. In my behaviour work, if I hear of a sudden behaviour change, in an adult animal, I always suspect pain (or illness of some kind).
This is why working with veterinary clinics is so important in the clinical animal behaviour. Collaborating together on cases, allows us to rule in or out any medical confounders that may be causing, influencing or exacerbating behaviour problems. In many cases, treating pain – even as a trial – can resolve the behaviour problem, meaning that the animal can quickly start enjoying a better quality of life, everybody is safer, & there is no need for a behaviour modification plan. It is vital to get every animal I see checked for pain by their referring veterinary surgeon. Sometimes pain cannot be completely resolved, or there is a legacy of learning, in which case we work together to address the behaviour and the physical condition – side by side. 💚
If you suspect your pet is painful - or their behaviour has suddenly changed - keep a diary, take videos, and describe what you see to your veterinary team – it is better to be proactive with treating pain, rather than opting to “wait-and-see” until things get worse. Work collaboratively with your vet +/- behaviourist (we all want great quality of life for pets after all), to be sure that your pet is getting the care that they need. Their lives are relatively short, and we are the guardians of their welfare – so being sure that we are on it before they need us to see the “neon signs“ is really important. 💓
Read more on here: https://downingcenter.com/news/pain-awareness-month-2?fbclid=IwAR1arkC0ZTeVEjF46Z6zEC4zJsEpdTmsK3qsFCu_Wvmjv3Th8Y18viXWzfE
