WARNING for dog owners: Arthritis Pain Drug "PREVICOX" KILLS.

George my 9 year old rescued Giant Schnauzer is now fighting for his life. He was prescribed Previcox by his vet for his arthritis pains. Following the vet recommendation I administered the tablets with food. After only two days and two tablets he started projectile vomiting, drinking a lot of water, being dizzy and manifesting all the symptoms of poisoning.

I Googled the name of the drug "Previcox" and "side effects" and I wish I would have done it BEFORE giving giving George the drug. To my astonishment, there are hundreds and hundreds of personal testimonies written by people who administered their dogs the same drug, their pets manifested exactly the same symptoms like my George and finally, had their dogs ending up dead or barely escaped death with irreversibly damaged stomachs, liver, kidney or hearts.

From an article published in 2006:

"The FDA has released information concerning non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for pets -- including Metacam, Deramaxx, Previcox and Rimadyl -- that shows they have been connected to 22,000 cases of illness in dogs, almost 3,000 of which were fatal."

What causes death by Previcox? Acording to one of the hundreds of testimonies I found on the Internet written by a dog owner who lost his pet to Previcox poisoning,

"The Previcox apparently starts first by forming ulcers on the stomach and as more Previcox is administered it becomes ulcer upon ulcer until the stomach acids (full of Previcox) begin to leak out. It seams it first attacks the kidneys and liver. Then it begins to destroy all the protective membranes that are protecting all of the other organs. In the end it makes its final attack on the heart."

Read the rest here: http://www.k911.biz/Previcox_Emails/main.php

Previcox is the veterinary version of the Vioxx (prescribed for arthritis in humans) and it is made by Merial which is a branch of Merck. As you may already know, Vioxx was pulled off the market by the FDA after thousands of people ended up dead after taking the drug. Yet, the same company continues to push Previcox which has the same risks and causes deaths in animals.

Before starting your dog on Previcox I beg you: please, if you love your dog go to http://www.k911.biz/Petsafety/PrevicoxEmails.htm and read Rowdy's tragic story as well as other hundreds and hundreds of emails sent by other pet owners who tragically killed their pets by poisoning them with Previcox.

Update at 11:06 PM

George vomited for the third time today and he is very weak, shaking...refused the yogurt but my wife cooked a little beef and carrot soup and gave it to him a few minutes ago, licked the bowl. We expect he will vomit it shortly but that's all we can do until tomorrow morning. We put plastic bags all over the bedroom floor, makes it easier to clean. We'll see what happens until tomorrow when the vet office opens.
I am royally pissed on the vet who did not warned me about the potential side effects and on the company who makes and pushes such a dangerous drug which is banned for humans; if George dies, I'll make taking this drug off the market one of my life goals. I just learned another side effect is extreme aggression (probably caused by pain) and read about a little girl disfigured by a dog who was given Previcox. Dog owners need to know what the risks associated with this drug are. I will start a website and put all the effort and Internet knowledge I am capable of to make it pop on top of every Google search when people are searching the name of this drug.

UPDATED 10-23-2014 (five years after I published this blog entry)
The website that had Rowdy's story as well as hundreds of other testimonials is no longer online. I managed to find some archived internet pages of that website using the Wayback Machine. You can read them here: https://web.archive.org/web/20140701032307/http://www.k911.biz/Previcox_Emails/main.php