This article is not intended to make the reader a Veterinary Pharmacist. In fact, to understand and learn the numerous drugs available to the Veterinary practitioner takes years of formal training and fills volumes of texts. Rather the intent of this text is to outline some of the more commonly encountered types of drugs when a pet is prescribes a medication and answer some commonly asked questions. As always if you do not find exactly what you are looking for here ask more specific questions through our contact section on this site and we should be able to help you. The easiest way to approach drug classification is based upon how each drug effects the body system, with anything a lot of drugs are not system specific and with more research being done by the pharmaceutical companies, certain drugs are being found that effect multiple body systems, in other words some drugs can and are used to treat several different maladies. All drugs approved for use in animals go through extensive testing before they are allowed to be used on your pet, but it is up to your Veterinarian to use whatever drug he sees fit to best treat your pet. Sometimes he may use a drug that is not specifically labeled for your pets problem, this is called extra label prescription and is perfectly legal in Veterinary medicine and is an advantage to the pet owners since Veterinarians are not limited in the types of drugs they can use to save your animals life. So in this article we will address in broad terms, four of the most commonly prescribed drugs for animals. Remember this is not a pharmacology class and we will just briefly touch on the following drug classes. Antibiotics, steroids and immune suppressants, cardiovascular drugs and diuretics, and non-steroidal anti- inflammatory drugs.

Antibiotics - The definition of an antibiotic is; a chemical substance produced by a microorganism which has the capacity, in dilute solutions, to inhibit the growth of or to kill other microorganism. Antibiotics that are sufficiently nontoxic to the host are used as a chemotherapeutic agent in the treatment of infectious diseases of man, animals and plants. Antibiotics are classified according to their mechanism of action and which bacteria they can kill or inhibit. ANTIBIOTICS DO NOT KILL VIRUSES. Although in the face of a viral infection Veterinarians will use antibiotics to prevent secondary bacterial infections

Steroids and Immune Suppressants - Steroids are receiving a lot of press lately because of their use in sports as performance enhancers, their are two types of steroids commonly used in Veterinary medicine. Adrenal cortical steroids and anabolic steroids, of the two adrenal cortical steroids are most commonly used. Anabolic steroids are the steroids used as growth promoters and are considered androgenic. Cortical steroids are used in many aspects of veterinary medicine to control inflammation, alleviate allergic reactions and treat numerous other diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disease. All steroids have side affects, because they replace the normal production of these compounds in the body and should always be used with Veterinary prescription and discretion.

Cardiovascular Drugs and Diuretics - Cardiovascular drugs are designed to increase cardiac out put, by making the heart beat more efficiently, thus supplying the body with life giving blood and removal of excess fluid in the extravascular tissue. Digoxin is an ionotrope which means it makes the heart work more efficiently. Diuretics, remove excessive fluids from the body. Probably the most commonly used diuretic is Furosemide. It is used in small animals for the treatment of congestive cardiomyopathy, pulmonary edema and exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage (bleeding) in race horses. At this time the author does not know the reason for this affect. Furosemide is almost always given to your pet when it is diagnosed with congestive heart failure and it is drug of choice in the battle against heartfailure heart failure.

NSAIDS - Non steroidal anti inflammatories have been used in human medicine for years. The most common being aspirin, other human NSAIDS are ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Caution these human drugs are dangerous to animals. NSAIDS work by blocking the conversion of arachadonic acid to prostaglandin, which is a mediator in the inflammatory response. Great progress has been made in safe and effective NSAID drugs that can be used in animals. Such as Firocoxib, Meloxicam, Carprofen, and Tepoxalin. These are prescription drugs and can only be prescribed by your veterinarian.

DO NOT TREAT YOUR ANIMAL WITH A PAIN RELIEVER BEFORE CONSULTING YOU VETERINARIAN!

As I said before, this is a very large topic and if you have specific question please address them to our Ask The Veterinarian web page.