Chronic pain management in cats has improved dramatically with the development of feline-specific medications, but remains challenging due to the species' unique drug metabolism and stoic pain behavior.
Chronic pain management in cats represents a welfare area where significant improvements are recently available but not yet widely implemented. The historical undertreatment of feline chronic pain reflects a combination of the species' stoic behavioral responses (making pain invisible to casual observation), genuine pharmacological challenges from unique cat metabolism, and limited pharmaceutical investment in feline-specific products. The development of species-specific monoclonal antibody treatments for osteoarthritis pain, alongside validated pain assessment tools like the Feline Grimace Scale, is transforming the ability to identify and treat chronic pain that was previously unrecognized.