Well, the blogger who does that said, in this cat’s case, it’s to treat urinary incontinence. I double-checked her web link for veterinary Elavil, and sure enough, that’s a listed indication.But, the first listed indication is for a “mental health condition,” separation anxiety.
To see just how nutty pet owners can be, and how greedy Big PhARMA can be, let’s take more of a look at veterinary Elavil.
First, other indications are for obsessive grooming behavior in cats and dogs. Who determines what is “obsessive grooming behavior”? Why, a pet psychologist, of course.
Don’t laugh. I’ll be getting to that in a minute.
Side effects? The biggest is that it can exacerbate a cardiac rhythm disturbance.
How do you know if your cat has one?
You give it an EKG, of course. Really.
The most potentially dangerous side effect that happens with a realistic frequency is the exacerbation of a cardiac rhythm disturbance. For this reason, an EKG screening has been recommended before starting this medication.
Oh, and there are medicine interactions. Don’t give your anxious or obsessive cat an MAO inhibitor along with Elavil. And, if your anxious cat has needed some stomach medicine health, sorry, that Tagamet doesn’t mix with Elavil.
You think I’m joking about all this? Look at the sidebar of clickable links on that web page. Benadryl, buprenorphine, fentanyl patches, glucosamine (which doesn’t work for people, anyway, so pet owners buying this are suckers twice over), phenobarbitol, prednisone, theophylline and valium.
Three thoughts on this, one with subthoughts.
Pets are as overmedicated, on average, as people now are, it would appear.
No. 2 is that this sounds like an invitation to become a junkie.
Doc, my cat is anxious. What can you prescribe her?
Oh, here try some Valium.
I’m also wondering if vets themselves who get into prescribing psychoactive drugs for dogs and cats, like hospital doctors and nurses, don’t have trouble at times with staying out of their own medicine cabinets.
Third is, how do you pay for all these pet meds, vet visits, vet psychologist visits, etc.?
With pet health insurance, of course, which has nearly 1 million Google hits.
Hey, Kevin Drum. Next time you do Friday catblogging, and you then bitch about lack of health care for people, you might comment about this issue.
If what I mentioned above wasn’t enough nuttery, you can now get a personality test for your cat.
(Answer: Every cat has narcissistic personality disorder, with histrionic subtraits.)
There. I just saved you a shitload of money on a veterinary psychologist. And don’t laugh. Somebody with a title is getting paid big money by dumb pet owners for this stuff. Unfortunately, the ASPCA, which is backing this pseudoscience, also has a similar one for dogs.
(Answer: Every sufficiently housebroken dog has attachment disorder.)
