Managing Arthritic Pain in Pets – And consequenses if you DON’T

The more that we wait to address the pain, the more muscle atrophy we get, the more rapidly advances that degenerate joint disease and that arthritis.

Hi. My name’s Dr. Sean McPeck. I’m the owner and CEO of Tier 1 Vet at medical center. The biggest thing is to get the pain under control as soon as possible. Because if it is arthritic pain, what you start to then get is what we call disuse atrophy, muscle atrophy, and then it exacerbates the issue. Once you start to lose that muscle, now the body is relying heavily on the skeletal or the bone support, which is what is causing the pain already. And so you exacerbate and amplify that pain as you start to lose that muscle. So we want to try to stop losing that muscle by getting rid of the pain so that the animal still uses those limbs. Right?

It’s kind of common sense. But the more that we wait to address the pain, the more muscle atrophy we get, and then the more it rapidly advances that degenerate joint disease and arthritis. And we get bony changes that are very difficult to deal with. But there is a product, it’s a newer product out there called Myos.

It’s very high in fortetropin, and what we know is that if the body has high levels of myostatin, it rapidly resorbes muscle that are not being used. If you don’t use it, you lose it. And anybody that has seen somebody that has been paralyzed or in a wheelchair, you see how much muscle they have lost and the same thing happens with our pets.

If they don’t use those limbs, they start to lose that muscle. But if we can lower the level of myostatin in the system, then we can slow or almost stop disuse atrophy. So even post surgically, people that have gotten, let’s say, a fracture repair or a TPLO for an ACL tear, they can see a significant difference just from confining that animal and the pain of not wanting to use that limb, that limb significantly shrinks in circumference due to loss of muscle.

But having your pet on this product, called Myos, that has high levels of fortetropin, the high levels of Fortetropin drive down the myostatin so that we have less disuse muscle atrophy. So talk to your veterinarian. See what’s right for you. There’s a lot of different supplements out there. I think a great supplement to be on, even if you are not wanting to be on medications, is high doses of omega three fatty acids found in fish oils, not in flaxseed oil, but in our fish oils.

What we find is that if we get to a magic number, there’s a magic number, right? If I told you to take ibuprofen for a headache and you took ten milligrams, it’s not going to do anything, right? And so that’s where we have to get to a magic number. That magic number is 80 MG per KG a day of omega three fatty acids derived from fish oils. Those high levels of DHA and EPA, we know, when we get to that 80 MG per KG a day level, significantly reduces inflammation specifically in the joints. And there is a lot of other benefits; neuroprotective, great for skin, the kidney, cardiovascular, the eyes. So, Omega three fatty acids and fish oils are phenomenal all the way around, but they’re great for reducing inflammation in the joints. A few other products out there, supplements that help to deal with arthritis.

You see different ones that have glucosamine chondroitin in it, and those are hit or miss. They add a lot of other things in there that help to reduce inflammation. Saponified avocado. MSM. But I’ve seen great results with a product called UCII Collagen that was recently brought over to the pet side. It was originally very popular on the human side, but UCII collagen is great.

And then there’s a lot of different joint supplements out there that have to deal with different types of oils. Omega three fatty acids derived from different sources, green lip mussels, blue lipped mussels. They’re just more potent and that’s that’s great. But keep in mind, if your cat is sedentary, one of the number one things that goes undiagnosed in Veterinary medicine is osteoarthritis or degenerative joint disease and arthritic pain in cats.

Why? Because in dogs we can see it, right? We see our dogs. They come to greet us right away. They’re moving. They’re running to play with their toy. We let them out. We take them out. We can see when they start to slow down or they have a hard time getting up or if they’re limping. But with cats, a lot of times they’re just kind of hanging out, maybe sunbathing, relaxing.

We may not see them move as much and not realize that they are in pain. But we’ve got great products for our cats, too, that can help them have a very enjoyable life and we can keep that weight off of them because that’s a really difficult thing with cats, is to get the weight off of them. Not having an obese cat or dog is great for longevity and reducing complications that they may have with arthritis or pain.