Happy Halloween!

We are having a pet costume contest at the hospital today. It has been lots of fun to see how creative our clients are and how darned patient those poor critters are. Don't you wonder what is going through their minds when their humans start stuffing them into those pink ruffled tutus or black shiny bumble bee outfits? One year I glued pom-poms all over Verbal (my lab/golden cross), painted her toenails pink and gave her a rhinestone collar-the perfect poodle dog. Yes, humans are strange creatures, indeed.

Ricardo, our newly 3-legged kitty, came in yesterday for a recheck exam. He is having a weird reaction to his pain medication; his temperature was over 105 degrees! This has been reported in some cats getting opiate-type pain relievers, so we had taken his transdermal fentanyl patch off right after his surgery and started him on a different medication, buprenex. I guess it wasn't the right choice for him, either. He is on an NSAID and a good antibiotic, the incision itself looks clean, dry, no redness or swelling or discharge to indicate infection. It must be this rare opiod reaction. We will try a low dose of still a different med, tramadol. I don't use it often in cats because I sometimes see them act a little "wiggy" on it, confused, ataxic (wobbly), vocalizing, (crying), but we are running out of choices for Ricardo and he has to have SOMETHING for pain relief. He had a leg cut off for Pete's sake. He is eating and drinking and using his litter box just fine...what a trooper. Sure wish humans could be as resilient as animals.
Well, I have officially blogged for a whole work week now. Thank you for sticking with me so far and for the helpful comments. Please keep them coming. If you have any questions, we can do an "ask the vet" type of column on certain days. E-mail me at Contact DrReneigh

If I don't know the answer, I'll try to do some research and get one for you. Often the answer will be "get your pet to a vet," but we can use this site for general info and helpful hints.
Have a happy and safe Halloween.

Peace,
DrReneigh