Nocita is a long-acting local anesthetic used in veterinary medicine to manage post-surgical pain in dogs and cats. Its active ingredient is bupivacaine, a common numbing agent, but packaged inside microscopic fat-based capsules called liposomes that release the drug slowly over days rather than hours. It is FDA-approved for use in dogs undergoing cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) surgery and in cats undergoing onychectomy (declaw surgery), and it’s given as a single injection at the time of the procedure.
How Nocita Works
Standard local anesthetics wear off within a few hours. Nocita lasts much longer because of its delivery system. Each liposome has a honeycomb-like structure made up of many tiny chambers, each surrounded by a fatty wall. Inside those chambers sits an aqueous solution of bupivacaine. Once injected, the animal’s body heat gradually destabilizes the fatty walls, causing the chambers to break open one by one and release small amounts of the numbing agent over an extended period.
This slow-release design is why Nocita needs to be injected close to the surgical site or the nerves serving that area. Because the drug is locked inside these vesicles rather than freely circulating, it works locally rather than spreading through the bloodstream.
How Long the Pain Relief Lasts
Nocita provides significantly longer numbness than a standard bupivacaine injection. In a study published in the American Journal of Veterinary Research comparing the two in dogs, standard bupivacaine’s numbing and motor-blocking effects wore off within 24 to 48 hours. With Nocita, sensory block lasted up to 96 hours. At the 72-hour mark, 37% of dogs treated with Nocita still had reduced sensation at the surgical site, and all functions returned to normal by 96 hours.
That extended window, roughly three to four days, covers the most painful period after surgery without requiring repeated injections or relying as heavily on other pain medications during early recovery.
Approved Uses in Dogs and Cats
Nocita is a single-dose product. It is not meant to be re-administered.
In dogs, it is approved for CCL surgery, one of the most common orthopedic procedures in veterinary medicine. The veterinarian injects it directly into the tissue layers as the surgical incision is being closed, ensuring the numbing agent saturates the area that will be most painful during healing. If the standard dose volume isn’t enough to cover the entire surgical site, it can be diluted with sterile saline to increase the volume without changing the drug dose.
In cats, it is approved for onychectomy and is administered differently: as a nerve block in each forelimb before surgery begins. The veterinarian targets four specific nerves in each leg using precise injection points around the wrist area. Unlike the canine application, Nocita should not be diluted when used as a nerve block in cats.
Side Effects in Dogs
Safety data comes from a field study of 123 dogs that received Nocita during CCL surgery. The side effects were generally mild and occurred at low rates:
- Discharge from the incision: 3.3%
- Incisional inflammation (redness or swelling): 2.4%
- Vomiting: 2.4%
- Swelling of the surgical limb: 0.8%
- Soft stool or diarrhea: 0.8%
- Loss of appetite: 0.8%
- Fever: 0.8%
Most of these overlap with what you’d expect after any major knee surgery, making it difficult to attribute them solely to Nocita rather than to the procedure itself.
Side Effects in Cats
A field study of 120 cats that received Nocita before onychectomy found a similarly mild side effect profile, though elevated body temperature was more common than in dogs:
- Elevated body temperature: 6.7%
- Surgical site infection: 3.3%
- Chewing or licking the surgical site: 2.5%
- Diarrhea: 1.7%
- Redness at the injection site: 0.8%
- Paw swelling: 0.8%
Some cats in both the Nocita and placebo groups showed temporary drops in platelet counts by day three, though none developed clinical signs related to the change. In a separate pilot study, one cat experienced temporary knuckling of a paw (a motor nerve effect) that resolved by the next morning, and another had bruising at the injection sites.
Important Safety Restrictions
Nocita must not be injected into a vein or artery. If that happens accidentally, the animal needs to be monitored for heart rhythm abnormalities, blood pressure changes, tremors, loss of coordination, or seizures. It also must not be injected directly into a joint. In humans, local anesthetics placed inside joints have been shown to damage cartilage, and the same risk applies to animals.
Because Nocita releases bupivacaine over several days, veterinarians also need to be cautious about using other local anesthetics alongside it, as the cumulative dose of numbing agents could reach unsafe levels. The product is designed as a one-time injection, so it is not repeated even if the pet seems uncomfortable later in recovery.
What Pet Owners Should Expect
If your veterinarian uses Nocita during your pet’s surgery, the main thing you’ll notice is that your dog or cat may seem more comfortable in the first few days after the procedure than you might expect. The surgical area is numbed for up to 72 to 96 hours, which covers the peak pain window. Your pet may still receive other pain medications during recovery, but Nocita reduces the overall need for them during that critical early period.
Because the numbness is localized, your pet won’t seem sedated or “out of it” from Nocita the way they might from systemic painkillers. They may, however, favor the limb or show reduced sensation in the area for several days, which is the drug working as intended. Normal feeling returns gradually as the liposomes finish releasing their contents.