Analgesia

A Critical Review on the Pharmacodynamics and Pharmacokinetics of Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs and Opioid Drugs Used in Reptiles

“…A three-step analgesic ladder was developed by the World Health Organisation to guide analgesic use in cancer ( Ventafridda et al., 1985 ). This has been adopted in veterinary analgesic drug selection ( Whiteside, 2014 ). For mild pain, non-opioids such as NSAIDs are used.…”

“…After drug selection, practitioners usually reference the Exotic Animal Formulary (EAF), a textbook of drugs and dosages used to treat exotic animals, for analgesic dose selection. Accurate dosing is imperative to provide optimal pain management, which is important in reptiles as they often do not receive analgesic treatment although they experience pain ( Hawkins, 2006 ; Whiteside, 2014 ). Reptiles experience pain-induced stress which may result in detrimental effects on immune function, metabolism, hematological and serum biochemical values ( Olsson & Simpson, 2017 ).…”