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Pre- Anaesthetic Blood Testing

A Stitch in Time…

Vets can come in for a lot of stick from time to time about their charges and whether everything they do is necessary. I certainly feel sometimes when I suggest one thing or another that the client seems to be trying to decide if I’m trying to make a fast buck or trying to suggest the thing for their dog.

One of the biggest areas that this seems to show up is with tests. Now most tests are very easy to see the value of. Your dog is ill and the vet wants to do something to find out the exact cause of the problem. No one can argue with that. However, I think some of our most valuable tests are the hardest to get people to have and these are the pre- anaesthetic blood test.

The vast majority of practices offer these nowadays and many will offer it to all patients but strongly recommend it for older or ill animals. The screen has many benefits and is often a relatively cheap way of getting a general health check on the inner workings of your dog.

Anaesthetics these days are much safer than they used to be and the drugs available to us as vets are on a par with those of human medicine. In fact, last time I had a general anaesthetic I had exactly he same injectable anaesthetic that I use every day at work. One of the dangers with these drugs is that most of them require the liver or the kidneys to break the drug down and get rid of it from the system to allow us or the dog to recover as the drug wears off. In many older animals and sometimes in younger ones too these organs may not be working as well as they should or there might be a congenital problem that you are unaware of. It is very easy to look at your dog that needs a small lump removed or a couple of teeth extracted and be convinced that you would know if something was wrong with it. This is the crucial point about these organs.

The liver and kidney have an enormous functional reserve and can cope with about a seventy per cent loss of function before you get any signs of any sort in the dog. Often because of this by the time we are presented with the dog that is drinking like a fish it has enormous disease damage already and we are limited to a degree by how much we can do. The blood test can show extremely signs of any hint that the organs are not working at their best. The earlier these warning signs are picked up the better and with treatment and supportive diets the long term outlook can be excellent for many of these cases obviously depending on what exactly is going wrong.

Harry is a perfect example of this. Harry could have come from the same litter as Pan and Badger and because of this resemblance and his wonderful nature I always have a soft spot for him. He was a slim and healthy nine year old that loved his walks and apparently had nothing wrong at all. He had a suspicious swelling come on his foot that we decided needed to be explored. His owner wasn’t particularly concerned but followed our recommendation regarding the test because she always wanted was best for Harry. The blood test showed he had kidney disease. This better prepared us for the surgery because we could give him intravenous fluids to make sure the blood supply to his kidneys was excellent but it also let us tailor what drugs he was given to avoid over- burdening his ailing organs. He started a prescription diet to help his kidneys and he is still going strong. In fact after a couple of months of the diet his blood tests showed that his kidney enzymes had returned to normal. He has occasional blood tests but that initial outlay of £25 was invaluable to him and his ‘mum’.

The thing is that if you have the test and it shows nothing then this doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your money. It gives a good base line for your dog to compare with future tests and it gives you the peace of mind that at that time your dog is in tip top health. At our practice we also offer ‘wellpet’ screens. These are as they sound and they are like our own routine blood tests that doctors recommend as we age and it is for exactly the same reasons. I think we often forget that our dogs age relatively about seven times faster than we do. This means that if your dog had a blood test before an anaesthetic six months ago and it was all fine but he needs another operation he really needs another test too because he has actually aged the equivalent of three or four years.

At work I try to constantly ask myself the same question and that is this; ‘what would I do if it was Pan or Badger?’ I can tell you that Pan had surgery recently to remove several lumps that, thankfully, turned out to be lipomas and he had a pre- anaesthetic blood test before we did it. He, and Badger, also had a well pet screen with their vaccinations last year. The answer to my question is easy. I would always have the test done because one time it might just save their life. It might sound over the top but it is true. So next time your vet starts to tell you about it or something similar take the time to consider why he might be saying it and equally if he doesn’t mention it because he’s so fed up with people saying no ask for one. He’ll be happy to oblige and it might turn out to be the best decision you make that year.

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