Understanding Pet Drug Interactions

Pet drug interactions should be taken into account when your dog needs to get a new drug, but is also under a different type of treatment. Drugs contain chemical substances that may interact and this may lead to a diminished or enhanced effect of one or both types of treatment. In addition, some drugs may interact with supplements or ingredients in the dog's diet. It's important to talk to your vet and inform him about the drugs your pet is taking, so that he will be able to heal without complications.

Pet Drug Interactions

Drugs contain various chemicals which may be the active ingredients or other filler ingredients, such as cellulose or dicalcium phosphate. These chemicals may not affect each other, but there are cases when they interact, causing:

• A diminished effect of one or both treatments, as one or more of the ingredients from a drug will neutralize the substances from the other drug.
• An enhanced effect of one or both treatments.
• Adverse reactions resulting in complications, and none of the drugs will be effective.

For this reason, it is always important to have a list of all the ingredients that are contained in the drugs that your pet is presently using, and to show this list to your vet when he wants to prescribe additional treatment.

The vet will be able to tell if there will be any interactions between the drugs and whether there are more recommended alternatives. In some cases, taking the drugs at a two- to five-hour difference will suffice to avoid any interactions between the active ingredients or the filler substances.

Drug Interaction Symptoms

When two or more substances in the drugs administered to your pet interact in a negative way, you may notice a number of symptoms:

• The recurrence of the initial symptoms of the disease(s) the dog is treated for
• Skin rashes
• Vomiting, which clearly indicates that the drugs are not absorbed in the dog's system and the treatment won't be effective
• Diarrhea
• Agitation
• Increased pulse and heart rate
• Drooling
• Lethargy
• Seizures
• Shock or coma in extreme cases

Some of these symptoms may also mean that the dog is allergic to one of the ingredients in the drugs administered, so additional tests will be performed. However, when you notice one of these symptoms when your dog is under treatment with several drugs, you need to visit your veterinarian.

Predicting Drug Interactions

There are thousands of meds that are used in veterinary medicine and variations of the same drug that may contain various filler substances, as used by certain manufacturing companies. Consequently, there will be numerous possibilities of drug interactions and these can only be predicted in some cases.

There may be interactions that only occur in certain pets that are more susceptible to allergic reactions to certain drugs or a mixture of drugs.