What’s your experience with using Rimadyl for an older dog? It seems really expensive ($55 for a two week supply.) My 11 year old guy has been stiff lately and more careful on stairs. It’s pretty all-of-a-sudden; I am not sure if it’s a new normal or he tweaked something.
I’d be interested to know how others are handling day to day discomfort in older dogs.
The generic is far less expensive. Chewy sells a 30-day supply of 25mg for $7.50 or 75mg for $10.80.
That said, Rimadyl seems to do nothing for my 16-year-old German Shepherd mix. It can be trial and error, and there are many possible reasons why a dog may be careful on stairs. Rimadyl is primarily for pain relief and doesn’t address the root cause.
My 11 year old is feeling his age, too. The vet prescribed gabapentin and told is to raise his dog dishes and get doggie stairs so he can get onto the bed more easily.
It is hard. If only they could talk and tell us where it hurts. Our guy seems to be having hearing and sight issues, too. Not horrible yet, but he doesn’t hear someone at the door and spaz out so much anymore. And he sleeps a ton. Sigh.
My 13 year old lab has been on it for about 18 months. It makes a huge difference in his quality of life. We order from Chewy. We break them in half and when he is really struggling we give him 1/2 in the Am and 1/2 at dinner. When he starts getting overly energetic we cut it back to 1/2 in the morning. We up it also if we are having other dogs visit. When he first went on it we would alternate one week on, one week off but now he needs it daily.
We also give him glucosamine chews which I buy from Amazon. I can post the name if anyone is interested.
Our boy also has recently lost his hearing and sleeps more.
Mine is walking a bit bow legged in the rear and he has stopped going up our deck steps, he goes to the door on the other side of the house instead, this is noticeable, and great, because he used to go out one door and in the other half the time. I am not sure if it is vision based, not liking the gaps between steps or if it is more comfortable to walk up the hill. We have a ton of steps in our home and he is not avoiding those, nor does he use the footstool to jump up on the bed, though he is pausing a bit more than usual before jumping up.
It’s as hard as baby/toddler stuff!
@somemom I highly recommend you see if Galliprant is an option for your dog. It worked so much better for our younger cavalier than our older one on Rimadyl, and I suspect that Rimadyl hastened our older dog’s kidney failure.
Doggy chiropractic treatment (offered at our vet - only $30!) helped our dogs…
Our old mini poodle had a bad reaction to rimadyl but the terroir mix is doing great on Galliprant.