09/30/2026
September Case of the Month 💚
Jack, an 8 year old german shepherd experiencing hip pain recently started Ketamine Therapy here at MVVH!
Continue reading to learn more about Ketamine therapy. 📖
Ketamine therapy for chronic pain is an emerging treatment we have started using in dogs for those patients where NSAIDS (like carprofen) and Librela are no longer working well. Ketamine is a powerful anesthetic drug, but when used at extremely low doses it causes a desensitization of pain by acting on the Central Nervous System (CNS). If an animal has chronic pain, any additional or new pain is felt at a much stronger level. With low dose ketamine therapy, we are not treating the cause of the pain, but we are treating the symptom of pain. Neuroplasticity refers to the changes the drug makes to the brain, and these changes can be long-term. Additionally, other treatment modalities like acupuncture or laser therapy can actually work better when used in conjunction with ketamine therapy.
Treatment consists of five injections, one per day for five consecutive days, then one injection monthly. As the drug is a controlled substance, the injections must be given at our office, but there are two important things to note. One is that the injections for even a large dog are less than $35 each, and the other is that the volume injected under the skin is often less than a ¼ cc (mL). Side effects may be mild sedation that lasts for a short time, anti-depressant effects, negative kidney effects if used on patients with kidney disease, and increased eye pressures in animals with already increased eye pressures.
If your pet is experiencing chronic pain and the traditional medications do not seem to be helping as much as they used to, please call our office and talk to us about low-dose ketamine therapy. 📞
