Pre-spay blood screening question

[CaelinTess]

What is it that they are testing with this blood screening? I'm just curious. I'm a medical transcriptionist, so I am wondering what it is for and how the veterinarian uses it.

 

AK Dog Doc, if you are reading this, I asked the spay/neuter clinic vet the questions you suggested, and here was her response:

 

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Dogs are monitored by using an "apnea alert" and a pulse oximeter.

These two instruments provide respiratory rate with an alarm is there is a specified gap between breaths, heart rate, and blood oxygen saturation. After surgery all animals are kept in direct visual contact with the veterinary technicians or the veterinarian.

 

There is no follow up routinely scheduled although if an owner has concerns they are welcome to set up a check-up appointment.

 

If there is a problem during surgery we would deal with it. Our goal, of course, is to have no problems develop. There is always some risk associated with surgery and general anethesia, however. No one would tell you it is risk free.

 

We do not require any pre-operative bloodwork although it is a good idea. If you want this done you may do it through your regular veterinarian and have a copy send to us.

 

We use pre-emptive analgesia and find that most dogs do well just with that. If you feel you would like additional analgesia, we can write you a prescription that can be filled by your regular veterinarian or you can discuss your concerns with your regular veterinarian and they may dispense the appropriate medication directly.

 

You are smart to ask these questions ahead of time. It is always good to have a full understanding of the surgicial procedure when a loved one is involved - four-legged or two-legged!

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Allie & Tess

[juliepoudrier]

Allie,

Generally the pre-surgery bloodowrk is a standard profile, which checks things like liver and kidney function and red and white cell counts (it's a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea). In a young, healthy animal, the bloodwork would simply show if there were some abnormality, say with kidney function, that isn't obvious without checking bloodwork.

 

FWIW, I generally do not have pre-anesthetic bloodwork done on my young healthy animals. It's really all a matter of your comfort level. I suppose if something happened to one of mine under anesthesia, then the vets are covered by the fact that I choose not to have the bloodwork done, but I just feel that the chances of their being a "hidden" problem are fairly low. As I said, it really comes down to your comfort level. If you feel safer/better having the bloodwork done, then by all means do so. And there is something to be said for having blood profile results on record as a baseline should any problems arise later in your dog's life. That is, it may be normal for your dog to have a low-normal BUN (I'm just using that as an example, don't know if such a thing would be a problem), but if you haven't ever done bloodwork while your dog is healthy, then you wouldn't know what the normal values are for your dog. Then if your dog is sick and you have bloodwork done, you and your vet would not know if any values that are slightly off may just be normal for your dog. Does that make sense?

 

If finances are an issue, then I would go ahead and do the neuter and just have a baseline profile done at a later date so you have one on record. That's just *my* opinion, and I'm sure others will feel differently.

 

J.

[2 Devils]

I have always chosen to do the pre-spay bloodwork on my dogs. I figure I would like the vets to have a baseline for down the road. I am glad I have done this. My bc/mix who as a puppy seemed extremely healthy and energetic. So the vets were surprised to find her white cell count a little low there were some other abnormal results but nothing they were concerned about since it was minimal.

 

Since she always seemed healthy we did nothing about any of her values. Since then, she has had some health intermittant issues. The vets have no clue what is wrong with her and the problems keep going away. We had many tests run for different diseases and luckily everything is normal. Most of her other blood tests have been normal but her white cells are still a little low.

 

So as you can tell, I recommend the bloodwork. You know never what you will find.

[CaelinTess]

Thanks for your input... I was worried this was a huge health issue that must be done or else. I think I will skip the bloodwork. It is partly a financial issue, but mostly the issue of how if I go in to have it done at my regular vet and they want to know why I am not having the spay done there (they cost 3 times what the spay/neuter clinic does and want keep her overnight with no one to check on her at all after closing time), then I will have them lecturing me.

 

I am all in favor of a baseline to have handy for future reference and will look into that at Tess's next well-dog visit. All my animals have peculiarities... Even my horse has a faster-than-normal heart rate with plenty of skipped beats. LOL. The vet just laughed and said "Well, he's an Arab..." the way lots of people explain their dog's energy by saying "Well, she's a Border Collie..." (:

 

Allie & Tess