Support From All Sides

Veterinary pain management is entering one of its most significant periods of innovation in decades. As pets live longer and play an increasingly important role in their owners’ lives, expectations around comfort and mobility are rising — pushing veterinarians to look beyond traditional NSAIDs and short-acting pain relievers. As a result, multimodal therapies, long-acting formulations and integrative modalities
are rapidly reshaping everyday protocols.

For industry partners, this shift presents a valuable opportunity. By understanding the challenges clinics face and the tools they’re adopting, representatives can offer meaningful support beyond product recommendations — helping teams implement effective, sustainable pain-management strategies that elevate patient care.

So why is pain management receiving its long-overdue moment in the spotlight? The answer is as multifaceted as it is and includes:

• Need — As of 2022, senior pets (dogs and cats over 7 years old) comprise over half of the U.S. pet population, creating a rising demand for management of chronic pain from conditions like osteoarthritis (OA) and degenerative neurologic disease.1
• Expectation — Modern clients have higher expectations for their pet’s comfort, well-being and quality of life.
• Recognition — Greater understanding of the link between behavior and pain, along with increased adoption of pain-scoring tools such as the Feline Grimace Scale, is improving pain detection in pets.
• Benefit — When intervention is early, effective and convenient, it enhances quality of life and lowers long-term care costs.

As veterinary professionals and pet owners recognize the broader impact of pain on everything from a pet’s surgical recovery to everyday life, the role of pain management has shifted from an optional add-on to the standard of care.

Surrounded: The multimodal approach

Multimodal pain management is a comprehensive approach that targets different points along the pain pathway to address pain. By combining multiple therapies, veterinarians can provide more effective analgesia and lower individual drug dosages — thereby reducing medication-related side effects and ensuring greater patient comfort.

Pharmaceutical modalities

While traditional medications remain part of the pain management toolbox, they may be used in new combinations or synergistically with other modalities. Common pharmaceutical components of a pain management plan include:

• Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) — NSAIDs such as carprofen, deracoxib, firocoxib and meloxicam remain a cornerstone of acute and chronic pain management in many practices.
• Emerging and adjunctive therapies — Gabapentin, amantadine and certain anxiety-reducing drugs may be used in combination with or as alternatives to traditional NSAIDs.
• Opioids — While highly effective, concerns over opioid misuse have influenced availability and prompted stricter regulations in veterinary practice, spurring the rise of alternative analgesics.
• Local and regional anesthetics — Uses include surgical or dental blocks, wound infiltration, and epidurals for targeted perioperative and long-term analgesia.
• Long-lasting injectables — Long-acting injectables, including monoclonal antibodies and extended-release opioids such as buprenorphine for cats, offer the potential for sustained analgesia and better compliance for chronic pain. While early results are promising, careful monitoring is key as long-term effects and best practices are still being determined.

Non-pharmaceutical modalities

Adjunctive approaches complement pharmaceutical solutions and target pain through a variety of physical, behavioral and interventional means. Options include:

• Laser therapy (photobiomodulation) — Class III and IV lasers provide non-invasive analgesic and anti-inflammatory benefits for acute and chronic pain conditions. With few contraindications, convenient portable units and client rental options,
  the practical applications of laser therapy continue to expand — both in the clinic
  and at home.
• Acupuncture and integrative care — Noninvasive modalities are often used alongside traditional medications or rehabilitative strategies to modulate pain pathways. They also offer options for dogs and cats who cannot tolerate traditional therapies, as well as for owners seeking a non-pharmaceutical approach.
• Physical rehabilitation — Physical rehabilitation uses manual and equipment-based modalities (e.g., underwater treadmill, therapeutic ultrasound, electrical stimulation, therapeutic exercises) to reduce pain and inflammation and restore or support mobility and function.
• Regenerative therapies — These therapies use biologics such as platelet-rich plasma and stem cells to promote tissue regeneration and healing and to modulate pain-causing inflammation. Common uses include treatment for orthopedic injuries, post-operative healing and OA.
• Targeted pulsed electromagnetic field (t-PEMF) therapy — tPEMF therapy uses electromagnetic impulses to stimulate healing and pain relief. Clinical applications include the treatment of acute and chronic pain. Convenient tPEMF devices such as beds and handheld units can be prescribed for at-home use.
• Weight management and nutrition — Nutritional innovations such as therapeutic diets that address both weight and joint health can improve patient outcomes and owner adherence to the prescribed pain management plan.

One size fits none: The rise of personalized protocols

Recognizing pain as an individual experience, modern veterinarians are considering not only the pet’s species, age and health, but also their lifestyle and risk factors, and the owner’s ability when designing a pain management plan. Industry partners can support this movement toward personalized pain relief by understanding not only how their products work, but how they may fit within a multimodal approach.

Chronic pain in dogs and cats: What’s needed now

Effective management of chronic pain is a pressing need in today’s veterinary clinics. With as many as one in five dogs experiencing joint pain and mobility-related issues in their lifetime — largely from OA or age-related degenerative changes — the most sought-after solutions can’t merely be safe and effective; they must also be convenient to ensure long-term compliance.2 Clear dosing guidance, easy or low-stress methods of administration, and tools to help track progress are becoming central to successful chronic pain management in dogs.

Cats represent a different but equally urgent need as veterinarians work to close the gap in feline chronic pain. After decades of underdiagnosis, a greater understanding and access to feline-specific therapies are opening the door to better chronic pain relief in cats. But there’s still room for improvement. Because clients struggle to medicate and transport their cats, therapies that emphasize palatability, minimize stress and provide long-acting results are key to driving better outcomes.

Across both species, the trend toward solutions that enhance quality of life while making long-term care manageable for owners is clear.

Shifts in post-surgical pain control

The evolution of perioperative pain management reflects a dual focus on patient comfort and clinic efficiency. Recognizing that a preemptive approach can prevent the cascade of negative effects of pain, impacting both patients and workflows, modern analgesia is increasingly proactive, comprehensive and multimodal. This includes broader use of preoperative medications to enable lower dosing, increased use of local and regional anesthesia, long-acting injectables and the use of non-pharmaceutical modalities like laser therapy, tPEMF or thermotherapy during recovery.

These patterns suggest valuable opportunities to support today’s clinics with products that provide predictable, sustained analgesia, integrate easily into multimodal protocols and reduce workflow burdens.

The best is yet to come

Breakthroughs in pain detection and management are happening at a rapid pace. With continued development of monoclonal antibody-based solutions, personalized pharmacogenetic approaches using a pet’s own DNA, and AI-based assessment and monitoring tools, veterinarians may soon be able to identify and address pain with previously unimaginable precision — helping pets not only overcome pain, but thrive.

References:

1. Packaged Facts, Pet Food in the US, August 2022, MRI-Simmons.
2. Johnston SA. Osteoarthritis. Joint anatomy, physiology, and pathobiology. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. 1997;27(4):699-723.

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