Premier Veterinary Care offers innovative, powerful monoclonal antibody therapy for dog & cat arthritis

Arthritis is the most common chronic disease in dogs and cats and can be the most painful and debilitating. In certain dog and cats breeds that have inherited conformational joint incongruences (e.g., Corgi dogs, English Bulldogs, Persian cats), arthritis may rear its ugly head sooner in life than the expected senior years.  Dogs and cats do not complain about, or articulate their pain.  They do not possess the emotion of self pity, and as all animal do, they in fact go out of their way to suppress weakness or pain.  They certainly do not whine or cry until levels of pain are so high that they cannot suppress the expression pain.

Thus, the changes in behavior may at first be subtle before pet parents pick up on lameness or stiffness.  The dog does not wish to go as far on his walks, or no longer jumps up on the bed or couch.  The cat cannot jump as high on his cat tree or is generally less active.  If we wait until pets are showing blatant signs of arthritic pain where there is now outright lameness or difficulty getting up from a lying position to seek intervention, we risk lessening the efficacy of all of the modalities we now have to offer clinical relief from arthritis while significantly slowing its progression.  Still, if you are seeing blatant signs of arthritis in your pet, all is not lost, as the treatment modalities we have to offer can still dramatically improve their quality of life and extend their longevity.

I have recently written about the addition of our Cutting Edge regenerative therapy laser for a side effect free and effective modality to manage arthritis.  I am thrilled today to announce yet another innovative tool to manage arthritis in dogs and cats: monoclonal antibody therapy to combat arthritis in dogs and cats: Librela for dogs, and Solensia for cats.

Chief among the many inflammatory mediators and structural changes that occur within arthritis joints, is the synthesis and deposition of molecule called nerve growth factor on the cartilaginous surfaces of joints.  Nerve growth factor triggers the sprouting of small nerves on joint surfaces where nerves were not meant to be.  The result is that much of the pain experienced by pets with arthritic is driven by nerve pathways that in younger days, were not once there.  Monoclonal antibody therapy provided by Librela and Solensia for dogs and cats, respectively, specifically target nerve growth factor and prevents it from attaching to its receptors on nerve cells and interrupts the transmission of pain signals.  The result is significantly less pain and a dramatic increase is mobility within just 2-3 treatments.  Librela and Solensia are administered by quick, safe subcutaneous once a month.

Monoclonal antibody therapy often results in patients being less dependent on anti-inflammatory therapy that sometimes leads to adverse side effects in dogs when used long term.  This is especially important for cats that do not tolerate anti-inflammatory medication for extended periods, subsequently having very limited long term medication options for arthritis.  Monoclonal anti-body treatment appears to be the wave of the future for management of all manner of disease, and it is beyond exciting that we can now utilize this technology to safely treat the most common chronic disease in dogs and cats!