Pre-Visit Pharmaceuticals (PVPs) - What Are They!?
PVPs are oral medications intended to reduce stress and anxiety related to veterinary visits or other stressful events. The purpose of these medications is to decrease anxiety, allowing your pet to be more relaxed and comfortable during visits, which facilitates handling and helps prevent the escalation of fear and anxiety at future visits.
It’s important to us at Clarendon Animal Care that we manage the overall stress and anxiety of our patients while in the clinic. This allows pets to be more comfortable in our offices, which in turn is less stressful for both pet parents and our team!
What do you need to know about PVPs?
It is very important to allow enough time for these medications to take full effect before a source of stress is introduced. We recommend following the label instructions carefully. For best effect, some medications will be recommended to give the evening before an appointment as well as a few hours prior.
We often prescribe a combination of medications so that we can get a synergistic effect and use lower doses—combinations will be customized to each patient. Please provide feedback and follow up on your pet's response to the medications so that we can make adjustments as needed. Sometimes it takes a few tries to land on the right cocktail for your pet!
We recommend trying them out at home first and contacting us for direction if you feel the dose needs to be changed. Your veterinarian may also recommend adjustments depending on how your pet does on the medications during their visit.
Please keep in mind that these medications are to be used in conjunction with training and desensitization exercises to achieve the best results. Please ask your veterinarian if you would like recommendations for local behaviorists and trainers to help with this process. We also have two behavior-savvy LVT’s (Alex and Alyssa) who routinely work with patients on becoming more comfortable with handling in the veterinary clinic, and would be more than happy to help!
Read more here: What is a PVP?
