Years ago I put a dog on prednisone because there was nothing else available at the time. It killed him. Prednisone is OK for a short course of a week or 10 days, but over time it will kill the dog. I learned my lesson about steroids, and never again will put a dog on steroids long term.
Aspirin works, but will make the dog deaf.
Aspirin is of minimal help. We've been dealing with old dogs for many, many years since my dad trained and worked boarder collies and once they became to arthritic to work, we'd get them. We started at this about 30 years ago so going the vet for there care started quite a while back. So we've seen the new drugs come along, some of which did great things for these old timers. Below are old, old pics of them. All now long, long gone.
Gee whiz, this old photos brings back memories. Best advise is to see your vet and see what they can offer.
Realizing that I had medicated my dog to death was one of the hardest things I ever had to confront. Sometimes they just go down and there's nothing you can do. Now, when the pain gets to be too much I can give opioids, which don't do systemic damage like steroid anti-inflammatories. I have a standard poodle right now with Addison's disease, which is in insufficiency of the adrenal glands. She's on a daily microdose of pred, and will be for the rest of her life. If she gets arthritis, I'm not going to boost the pred, I'll look for other solutions.