The Veterinary clinics of North America. Food animal practice
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Based on the available literature, the most important tool available in modern veterinary medicine is preemptive analgesia. Veterinarians must capture "opportunities" to prevent the onset of pain, prevent noxious stimuli or their perception, and limit the pain-stress-distress cascade that results in altered behavior and deviation from physiologic norms. ⋯ The goal of pain treatment should be to restore normal (physiologic) pain responses and to eliminate pathologic pain processes. In this context, pain therapy should be directed at the multiple mechanisms (multimodal therapy)responsible for its production, and analgesic therapies should be instituted before (preemptive therapy) pain is initiated (eg, surgery) whenever possible.