You can give your kitty NSAIDs as long as a veterinarian prescribes them. Cats have a unique metabolism and cannot tolerate NSAIDs for very long without having damage done to their kidneys. Usually, they're prescribed or given by us, and it's a very short course, no more than three days. They're formulated differently from the NSAIDs that people have. They're completely different non-steroidal anti-inflammatories for cats. So it's not just a little smaller piece of what a human would get. It's a totally different thing, made specifically with cats in mind, considering their unique metabolism because cat delivery systems can be challenging.

There really aren't any over-the-counter medications that I would say are safe for kitty cats. Typically it's going to be prescribed by a veterinarian, which would be safe because we're basing a prescription on an exam, which we always do.

The safety of the pet, and like we said, most of our diagnostic imaging, whether it's x-rays, ultrasound, or echocardiogram, doesn't require any sedation. To minimize those risks, if your pet is anxious, we try to make it as stress-free as possible, so there may be some calming medication recommended or involved.

The safety depends a lot on their comfort, so we try to make the procedure as comfortable as possible. If your pet is painful and we're trying to put them in certain positions that hurt them, that can put them at higher risk for their safety. We also want to make sure they are secure, which is done by having them in an enclosed room where there's no risk of them hurting themselves or anything else happening, like them escaping.

The ones that we do here are ultrasound and x-ray. As a person, you may think about the risk of x-ray as being radiation exposure. The same with even just a little bit with ultrasound. Our pets are exposed so infrequently or in such mild doses that I don't feel we have any risk associated directly with our patients.