Neuropathic Pain Management in Chronic Laminitis

Managing pain in horses afflicted by chronic laminitis is one of the greatest challenges in equine clinical practice because it is the dreadful suffering of the animals that most often forces the veterinarian to end the battle with this disease. The purpose of this review is to summarize our current understanding of the very complex mechanisms involved in generating and amplifying pain in animals with laminitis and based on this information to propose a modified approach to pain therapy. Furthermore a recently developed pain scoring technique is being presented that may help better quantify pain and the monitoring of responses to analgesic treatment in horses with laminitis.