Previcox and metacam

I forgot to ask my vet this, and for sure will contact them once they're available. So I'll run my question by you first :)   My dog (16yrs old) needs to have a dental and it's scheduled in a few weeks. Heart sounds good and bloodwork is okay too.   He has arthritis and is on previcox. The painkillers they use during surgery is metacam and I know they can't be mixed. So I'm thinking of giving it really early the day before (8am) as he's to be brought at 9am the next day. He'll be sedated almost immediately as we're allowed to be with him and after, when he wakes up.   This way, there will be 24 hours between the two dosages at least, right? And after the surgery, I can start up his previcox the day after, when the metacam is out of his system. I'll ask them when they're done if they have an indication of the time at which they gave the injection, so I can give it a bit later than that.   Is this an okay idea? Or are there better options?   Thanks in advance!

Hello - I like to think that your vet will be 'on it' with this one.  No vet uses the same pain-killers for surgery all the time; clinics often have blanket policies e.g. 'Our go-to pain-killer to cat-speys is Metacam' or ' but even then

Hello - and first of all, I appreciate your attention to detail. I'd like to think that your vet would also be 'on it' with this one.  No vet uses the same pain killers for the same procedure all the time; what suits one patient simply won't be right for another.  We all have favourites e.g. one vet might prefer metacam for dental trauma in straight-forward cases, but if the patient is on Previcox, they should be aware of this.  It is quite common for an older pet to already be on drugs of some description, so at the pre-op check on the morning of surgery, most vets would pay particular attention to what had already been given and when and have a paperwork system in place so that incorrect assumptions are not made.  If the pet had already had an NSAID, the pre-op check should flag it up, so that the vet avoids giving an overdose - perhaps using Morphine or Pethidine instead, if required, which can be given at the same time as an NSAID.  However, I would be lying if I said that communications mistakes cannot happen, so to make it as easy for your vets as possible, it is a great idea to call them prior to the operation and ask for instructions and again, at the pre-op check, to re-iterate what drugs have or have not been given.  This keeps everyone on the same page.

In short then, it is definitely your vets' job to double-check the drugs that your pet is on and not give anything twice, but your can triple-check by mentioning it yourself in advance, which never hurts.   A time to be particularly careful is if the operating vet is for some reason not the one that usually prescribes the drugs - in this case, we would especially encourage openness and clear communication.