FYI if you have a dog on this medication or are considering it-
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I’m torn on this. Every small animal vet I know is pushing this drug. Across likely millions of doses at this point 3,700 adverse reactions is well under 1%. If you’re in that 1% and were part of the subset that had a severe reaction or loss of life, it would be devastating. I don’t know if that negates the benefits. If I had a dog prone to seizures or on a complex set of meds I would probably be more apprehensive.
We are a year into Librela. It was amazing for the first three months. Now I’m not sure if it does anything. My guy got hit with a case of the olds really acutely in late summer so we are staying on it because he needs all the support he can get.
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People usually have their old old animals on it… I’m not sure those are side effects or a result of the animal’s age. Someone I know has a dog on it and she already admitted her dog had outlived all her other dogs (from that breed). How can you directly link the drug to symptoms when dogs at that age aren’t usually given a necropsy? Or the dogs already have multiple health problems?
One of my old dogs had a neurological event about 1 year prior to his diagnosis of cancer in the sinuses. They recommended an MRI to diagnose the issue which we didn’t do and the neurological issue resolved without treatment. No idea what caused it, and it would be easy to blame a medication (if he had been on anything.)
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My friend lost her dog within a week after the dog’s first dose. It was awful.
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This is my dilemma. When the old dog started falling apart, my mind immediately went to Librela. Then I did some research and decided based on the findings that we would throw everything else we could at it, and Librela will be the last resort. But with it being the last resort, should she pass away - was it age that got her or the drug?
Zoetis has a vested $$ interest in making any drug they produce seem as safe as possible. It is telling that the FDA is getting involved. Perhaps there are more side effects that need to be listed - the drug is quite new.
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I’m torn on it as well. I work in healthcare, there’s a risk with any medication, heck there’s risk of serious allergic reactions when trying new foods.
My dog is almost 11. She’s slowed down over the last two years. She a Bernese mix, she’s tall, was overweight when we got her as a young dog but has been lean being in our care. She’s always been active so one would expect some wear and tear. Last fall she came up lame. We had her sedated and did x-rays as well as manipulation to check for a CCL tear. Mild stifle arthritis in the affected leg, but otherwise looked good. Cut her back to leashed walks and no jumping on and off furniture for six weeks and she was back to normal.
Fast forward to this fall and she started getting more creaky. No overt lameness, just pausing before going up the stairs, etc. My first choice would have been an NSAID as needed. Unfortunately the only time she had an NSAID it resulted in bright red bloody diarrhea and inappetence for 3-4 days. So we opted to go with Librela. I can’t call it magical, she wasn’t that bad to begin with. I haven’t seen any side effects. If she develops a serious issue with a day or two of receiving it than sure, I’d be suspicious. But otherwise I would probably attribute it to old age.
We did Librela for 4 months? It helped and the after 2 months gave us a week of relief and then nothing. So we stopped. Our lab is 13-15 so we’re on borrowed time. She’s on Galliprant now and far more comfortable than she ever was on the Librela.
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We think our aged collie is getting extra time out of it, but who knows? She’s from collie rescue so we don’t really even know how old she is. She’s been on it for a year with no dramatic change, but she can still get up and down the stairs and enjoy walks. It’s true that in medicine the fix for one problem often causes another.
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Galliprant and CBD is what brought our old girl back.
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I have been using Librela over a year in addition to carprofen. It has been a wonder drug for my 14 year old Jack/Pom cross. On the walk today he was leading the way ahead of my two 4 year old JRTs. We have had no adverse effects whatsoever.
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@Cammie, thanks for posting this article. I’m not at all surprised that this drug has been associated with some serious adverse events. Don’t know if you were aware, but there have been several threads discussing possible adverse events with Solensia, which is the cat version of the drug. I’ve long thought the fact that the FDA and its European counterpart both declined to approve the human version of the drug because of concerns about adverse events is a big red flag, and this article about Librela validates this.
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Sadly not the first or last time a drug flunked out of safe human use, has been dumped onto the veterinary market.
People should research any drug their vet is pushing.
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My friend felt awful.
Her dog was middle aged and in good health. Her husband took her to the vet for an annual visit. The vet recommended starting it after he mentioned the dog was slowing down with age and occasionally looking stiff. My friend’s husband thought he was doing the right thing.
A couple days later she started seizing and was in kidney and liver failure. By the end of the week she was gone.
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That’s so sad.
Years back my vet suggested several drugs for my middle aged Bichon . I bought the drugs,
Came home and looked up info online and learned 2 of the drugs were taken off the market for humans and some articles described the “dump them onto the veterinary market.”
We have to be very careful.
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I used librella for my v arthritic 12 y/o lab. it made her feel so good she tore her achilles. now she’s in a permanent brace because surgery failed. her front elbows are so arthritic, it was painful to watch her hobble around. then I tried, as a last resort, arthromid. it’s a hydrogel, or some inert cushioning material which is injected, under anesthesia, into the joint and over a month adheres to the cartilage-free joint surfaces. It’s made a huge difference for her and she started playing again. it works for a year, then needs to be reinjected. not cheap.
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You mean like flunixin meglumine?
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Or the Lyme shot? Huge failure in the human market but pushed by many vets…Or even tick/flea medication (I’m always surprised how its “safe” for animal use but not for human use, especially when Lyme is a much bigger deal when a human contracts it, compared to a dog - my dog was positive for Lyme and Anaplasmosis and was asymptotic both times, which can be quite common for dogs, and she was never treated for it. I’ve had Lyme and thought I was going to die). Or cisapride, bute, DES, PPA - many at our vet compounding pharmacy here sold and used on a daily. Not saying they don’t have a good use in the animal field, just many were used and failed for human use, with severe reactions, but still used in the vet field.
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Or bute? Though bute was on the market for humans and then removed.
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FWIW, my sister started her elderly dog on it so when I saw the article, I asked my friend in Europe, who’s dog has been on Librela for 2 yrs and has done wonderfully on it, to ask her vet if they have heard of an issues with it there. Her vet asked her colleagues and they haven’t heard of issues with it. I don’t know what they have for monitoring there.
We use a lot of meds that can have adverse affects. One of the puppies I bred and sold was given a course of steroids for an ear infection when he was 5yo and he ended up dying of a GI bleed.
I remember when Rimadyl came out there were reports of dogs dying from one dose.
IIRC, the drug was not approved for humans because the arthritis gets worse while on it (worse than not taking the drug). For people that may live another 20yrs on it, that would be a bad thing. For an elderly dog who doesn’t have a lot of time anyways, it is not such a problem.
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Putting this here rather than making a new post
“According to the FDA, 3,674 dogs experienced reports of “adverse reactions” as of April 2024. Of that number, a total of 458 have died.”
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