The peripheral acting muscle relaxants are devoid of sedative and analgesic properties. These drugs, when used during surgery, must be administered only in conjunction with general anesthetics. Local and Regional Anesthesia Local and regional anesthesia is used most often in large animals, such as horses, cattle or sheep. Analgesic drugs Analgesic drugs to reduce pain are initiated during the surgical period and continued well into the postoperative recovery period. It is often erroneously presumed that an animal is not in pain, when there is no obvious change in behavior.
Pain can be difficult to detect because of individual and species variation.
Pain can be assumed to have been present if administration of analgesics causes these signs to disappear . Consultation with the attending veterinarian is recommended since there is tremendous variation between species as to their response to analgesic drugs. Limited animal studies have been conducted and for many species there will be widely different published dosage schedules. Never extrapolate from human data, please consult with the veterinarian. Medical and veterinary reports suggest analgesics are most effective when administered prior to the painful stimulus, before the surgical incision and tissue manipulation.