ANESTHESIA SAFETY
At some point your pet will require anesthesia. This may be a simple procedure such as a spay, neuter or dental work.  It is also necessary for life-saving procedures such as surgery to remove a foreign body. Many pet owners are fearful for their pets undergoing anesthesia. Some owners may even initially decline necessary procedures for their pet's health due to those fears. While anesthesia can be risky without proper precautions, we would like to help you better understand our anesthesia and the precautions we take to ensure your pet's safety. When done properly anesthesia has minimal risk.

Pre-Operative Exam: All pets must be examined within 30 days of undergoing anesthesia. We perform a full examination to ensure your pet is healthy. This examination also allows us to look for other potential problems such as tumors, retained teeth, dental disease and others things we could treat while your pet is under anesthesia.
 

Pre-Anesthetic Blood Work: We require pre-anesthetic blood work for all pets. Even though we use the safest anesthesia possible, it still needs to be processed through the liver and the kidneys. If these organs are not functioning properly anesthesia can be very dangerous for your pet. Even young pets that look healthy on the outside can be born with birth defects of the liver or kidneys. Our pre-anesthetic panel also screens your pet for diabetes, dehydration and anemia which will also increase anesthetic risk.
 

IV Catheter: We require every anesthetic patient to have an intravenous catheter. The catheter provides us immediate access to your pet's blood stream in case of a respiratory or cardiac emergency.  This saves us precious time in an emergency.  It allows us to inject life saving medications within seconds instead of minutes.

Sevoflurane Anesthesia: There are many choices for anesthetic agents. At My Pet's Vet safety comes first. We use an anesthesic gas called Sevoflurane.  It is used in human geriatric and pediatrics because of its safety record! It is an inhalant anesthesia that allows us to quickly adjust the level of anesthesia while your pet is anesthetized. We can also quickly wake a pet up in moments in case of an emergency. We can keep him at the safest anesthetic level possible. There are other options for anesthesia that are much less expensive, however they do not offer these very important benefits. These methods are a way to keep costs down while performing surgery, however we feel your pet's safety outweighs cost factors.

IV Fluids:  We require IV fluids for all pets when they undergo any anesthetic procedure, regardless of what type of surgery or how long the surgery will take.  Having your pet on IV fluids is important because it helps to keep your pet’s blood pressure stable, keep their liver and kidneys functioning to their full potential, and prevents dehydration during anesthesia. Pets that have been supported with IV fluids recovery more quickly and go home sooner after anesthesia.

Anesthesia Monitoring: While your pet is under anesthesia, a nurse monitors the patient from start to finish. The nurse monitors your pet’s temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, and ECG (heart rhythm), as well as your pet’s comfort level. There are numerous benefits to meticulous monitoring to keep a safe and effective level of anesthesia: it can help prevent post anesthetic problems such as blindness and hypothermia; we can better control pain during surgery; and we can intervene early to save a life if there is low blood pressure, heart arrhythmias,  or breathing problems.
 

Pain Medications: We make every effort to alleviate your pet’s pain. Pain control starts even before surgery does. This is called preemptive analgesia. We give each patient a pre-operative injection of narcotic to help them relax and control any discomfort that they may have during their surgery. Post-operatively, we follow-up with these same medications. We also give an anti-inflammatory medication to help with inflammation and pain. Using multiple methods for pain control is very effective and is called multimodal pain management.  Finally, pets are sent home with oral pain medications to keep them comfortable while healing.