pain, baby aspirin, buffered aspirin

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Expert: Patti – 7/20/2011

Question
well my dog jumped out of the car window yesterday she is not real bad hurt she is just limping a little and whinning and i wanted to know if i could give her tylonol pm to help her??
she is about 6 months old and weighs about 40 to 50 pounds if not more lol but i would really just like to help her so she can sleep so that maybe i could get some sleep lol please let me know asap Answer

Hi Tiffannie,

Dogs are pretty stoic about showing pain, so if your dog is whining and limping, it means she’s in pain. Your dog may well have a broken bone, or torn ligament after jumping from of your car’s window. There isn’t a way to guess about this, which is why you need to have her examined by a vet.

A dog shouldn’t ever be given any Tylenol products (or it’s generic form Acetaminophen) it can be toxic to dogs. You should not give a dog Ibuprofen (Motrin), unless your vet tells you to do so. If you’d like to relieve your dog’s pain until she can be seen by a vet you can give your dog buffered aspirin, or baby aspirins. Don’t use “safety coated” aspirin on a dog. A standard buffered aspirin is 320 mg., a baby aspirin is typically 80 mg. it can be given twice a day, if needed:

8 lbs: ½ baby aspirin or less
16 lbs: 1 baby aspirin (1/4 buffered adult)
32 lbs: ½ buffered adult or 2 baby
48 lbs: 3/4 buffered adult or 3 baby
64 lbs: 1 buffered adult or 4 baby
80 lbs: 1¼ buffered adult or 5 baby
96 lbs: 1½ buffered adult or 6 baby

Give your dog aspirin along with something to eat. Aspirin can cause stomach upsets and ulcers in dogs, just as in humans. You should pay attention to your dog’s eating habits when giving her aspirin. If she starts to throw up, or acts like she doesn’t want to eat, discontinue the aspirin use.

If you had a broken leg or torn ligament aspirin wouldn’t work especially well in controlling the pain, the same goes for your dog. If your dog continues to limp and whine after three days of giving her aspirin, it means she needs to see a doctor!

If you are having trouble affording veterinary care, first talk to your regular vet. Ask your veterinarian if he or she will let you work out a payment plan. Many veterinarians are willing to work out a weekly or monthly payment plan so that you do not have to pay the entire cost of veterinary care up front. Another option is to contact your local animal shelter or Humane Society. Some shelters operate or know of local subsidized veterinary clinics or veterinary assistance programs. Yet another option is to contact friends and family and ask for a loan. If you happen to live within driving distance to a veterinary school, check with them to see if they offer discount services to the public. There are two special credit cards to apply for, which help with medical bills (including veterinary bills) read about them here:

http://www.carecredit.com
http://www.healthcard.citicards.com

I hope this helps!
Best of luck,

Patti

Anything stronger than baby aspirin is a problem for me because I start personifying my inuries and they"re never nice

The night before Thanksgiving I was feeling charitable so I gave the dogs a bath which was fine until I had a terrible reaction to work.  About twenty minutes after the dogs were dry, I was minding my own business, googling pictures of clothes I will never be able to afford, when all of the sudden my leg was like, “HEY I ITCH BAD.”  I scratched my leg absent-mindedly for a while when, would you look at that, I noticed skin underneath my fingernails.  Doesn’t that sound totally not disgusting?

Huh! I thought to myself.  Where did all that skin come from? And then I looked at my leg and was like OH.  Because my thigh was covered in some particularly attractive red welts.  Like, the mothership of all welts.  Wherever a welt exists in the world, my welts birthed them.  THOSE KINDS OF WELTS.

It took me a minute to figure out that I ought to blame the dogs, but I got to that soon enough.  Then I kicked them both and yelled “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE” directly into their little, innocent faces.  This being before I mixed rat poison into their dinners, of course.  And by kicking, yelling, and poisoning, I mean snuggles and baby talk, but I don’t really know which is worse from their perspective.

Anyway, I quickly put my brain to the task and deduced that I had two options: first, I could put some lotion on my legs and go to sleep.  Second, I could wake up my mom at 1:00 in the morning and ask her to cure me.  See, I occasionally wake my mom up in the middle of the night when I want to inform her that I’m dying of some awful allergic reaction.  I do this partly because my body really does itch, but mostly because I just like the attention.  This time, however, she just sort of tossed me some Benadryl and went back to bed, and now I think I may have overdone it a little bit because no one even feels bad for me anymore when I itch.

The point of this story is that on the night before Thanksgiving day I took Benadryl at 1:00 am.  I think a normal person would probably be fine and just go to bed once the drowsiness kicked in, but since I’m an idiot, I chose instead to fight the power of modern medicine until the last possible moment.  Basically I was completely out of it, and while some might be like “MEGAN YOU FOOL, YOU CAN’T GET HIGH FROM BENADRYL” I maintain that these people clearly do not know me and anything stronger than Advil will turn me into a bumbling idiot.  This is further proven by the fact that I am a clumsy fool with a weak immune system, so I always get sick or injured and require heavy duty cough medicine or some sort of pain killing narcotic for something or other.  I try not to take those prescriptions because I can’t ever really remember anything that has ever happened to me while on them.  I have low tolerance for every single chemical, is what I’m saying.  You should see me on Red Bull.

So picture, if you will, me.  I’m sitting on my floor in the middle of the night insisting to myself that I am NOT tired.  (I totally am tired.)  I send a few mispelled texts (phone becomes “poo hone” when autocorrect hates me) and eventually settle into a sort of drug-induced haze of fatigue.  I cry a little bit, because that’s what I do.  That’s when I notice a freaking HUGE bruise running up my thigh.  How did it get there?  I don’t know.  I still don’t know.  Did I run into a table?  Did a midget beat me with a crowbar?  Did I punch myself repeatedly and then forget about it?  Anything is possible.  And that’s when The Bruise and I started to have a conversation.

Me: Hey.  Whatcha doin?
Bruise: OMG, mind your own business.
Me: I would, it’s just that you hurt and stuff.
Bruise: And your point?
Me: Well, you’re huge and green.  Bruise, why are you green?
Bruise: Kool-aid.  Now go away.
Me: They make green flavored Kool-aid?
Bruise: Green isn’t a flavor, idiot. It’s apple.
Me: Oh.  You should just drink apple juice then.  It makes more health sense.
Bruise: Could you, like, shut up?  I’m trying to bleed into your soft tissues.
Me: Sorry.  I’m just confused.  I don’t remember running into anything lately.
Bruise: Are you kidding? You’ve fallen over 17 times since I’ve been here.  You just bought a pack of glitter band-aids two days ago.
Me: Oh yeah.  I guess I did do that.  Do you think you would go away if I stuck a glitter bandaid on your face?
Bruise:…No.
Me: Why not
Bruise: I’m an internal pool of blood caused by ruptured capillaries.
Me: Sounds like a job for glitter bandaids.
Bruise: No, nitwit, bandaids only work to protect external abrasions, such as minor scrapes and–WHAT ARE YOU DOING, STOP IT, GET THAT OFF OF ME.
Me: Shh, bruise, sleep now.  Everything is going to be okay.
Bruise: NO IT ISN’T, YOU ARE THE DUMBEST GIRL IN THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH.
Megan: Hey, so I just googled you and the internet says you could solidify under my skin and become permanent.  Are you going to do that?
Bruise: No.
Me: Oh.  Well…you could, if you wanted.
Bruise: No.
Me:…Will you be my friend?
Bruise: No.
Me: Okay.
[awkward silence]
Bruise: Stop poking me.
Me: But you hurt.
Bruise: Stop.  Seriously.
Me: Owww, why do you hurt?  The harder I poke, the more you huuuuurt.  Oh my gosh, this is so paiiiinful.
Bruise: I hate you.
Me: OWWWWW.

My bruise is still there but it isn’t talking to me.  I don’t know if it’s just mad or if it was inanimate all along, but I will cherish the memory forever.