Are Pet medications and People Medications the same?

pet medSometimes, but don't count on it. The dangers work both ways; people shouldn't take pet medicine and pets shouldn't take people medicine.

First of all, prescription medicine should be taken with the supervision of a Doctor Who knows things like possible allergic reactions, negative drug interactions, dosage, drug shelf life, and the duration of the period you should take a particular drug in a particular dosage. They go to school for years to know this stuff. If you take the wrong drug too long, you could do irreparable harm to your organs.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has higher safety tolerances required for people medicine than pet medicine. It may be that some drugs are chemically identical and come off the same manufacturing line, but in many instances the drugs may be processed differently. Also, it's a bad bet that if you have a drug for an animal (i.e. muscle relaxant) it works on a person. Why? Because even if 95% of the time the drug is safe, that leaves 5% of the time that the drug is not safe... in short, possible illness or death.

The same arguments work in reverse for out pet friends. Just like you can hurt some animals by giving them people food (dogs may die if they eat chocolate and most animals can't digest cow milk properly) certain drugs are toxic; if you give a goat pepto bismol it could kill it. Talk with a vet or vet tech if you have questions. There are low cost clinics all over the place. Get a cheap vaccination and pick the doctors brain for 5 minutes while he gives your pet their annual booster shot.