Anaesthetics and Surgeries

It is quite common practice for patients to come in to have surgeries or procedures that require a general anaesthetic.

What to expect for you and your pet?

Generally surgeries are day procedures which means your pet needs to arrive between 8-8.30 a.m. that morning. We ask that your pet is fed like normal the night before, but remove their food at 8 p.m. Water can remain with your pet right up to being brought into the clinic.

All patients are given the option to have a pre-anaesthetic blood test, and we strongly recommend this for any patients over the age of 7. This is to check their kidney, liver and some other blood levels are ok. This allows us to determine if the patient requires supportive fluids before undergoing anaesthetic or that they are not able to have an anaesthetic as the risks are too great. Blood is taken at the clinic and run in house to get results within 10 minutes.

Once you arrive…

One of our friendly veterinary nurses will spend 5-10 minutes going through some details with you especially best contact details for the surgery day, a cost estimate will be provided and we will ask that you sign a consent form indicating you are happy for us to give your animal an anaesthetic to perform whatever they are being admitted for. We will also give you other details regarding the time to ring for patient discharge.

Your dog will then be brought into our treatment room where one of our vets will perform a full physical examination. At this stage we will give your pet some medication to essentially sedate them – this will help relieve any anxiety they feel as well as offer solid pain relief.

They will then go into a designated cage with a blanket in the treatment room, meaning they will be in our vision all day.

Prior to surgery being performed we place a drip in all patients meaning that we can provide intravenous fluids and ensure we have a rapid method of delivering medications we require. This is one important way of minimising anaesthetic risk to your pet.

During surgery a veterinary nurse is always with your pet monitoring them to ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. The same nurse will then stay with your pet until they have woken up.

Afternoon procedure…

We generally recommend that you give us a call around 2pm to see how your pet is going and so we can give you a discharge time. This is generally between 3 – 4.30pm. At this point we will fix up any outstanding accounts and our nurse or vets will go through any home instructions as well as provide you with written instructions. Your pet may have medications to go home with as well that we will provide.

Why we feel that you should bring your pet to us…

Here at the Pittsworth Veterinary Surgery we feel that we perform our surgeries and anaesthetics at a very high standard. Some factors that we include in our procedures to make sure that risk is minimal include;

Pre-anaesthetic blood tests are recommended on all patients over 7yo. We can perform these tests on pets of any age though if you would like or we feel may be beneficial. These tests can be performed quickly in house on the morning of the procedure.
All patients are given an intravenous fluid line, and have fluids during the procedure to help maintain their blood pressure.
We use the safest sedatives and anaesthetic medications on the market- these may not always be the cheapest options however we feel that the safety provided by using these drugs makes for less risk for your pet.
We have a large range of monitoring equipment to check your patients oxygen levels, heart beat, blood pressure and temperature.
All patients are actively kept warm throughout the procedure, and during recovery.
We have a designated surgery nurse that is with patients during the entire procedure and wake-up
We will provide e-collars for those patients that require it but do try to minimise use of e-collars through adequate provision of pain relief.
Stitch removal is a FREE procedure that we suggest 10 days after the surgery, and also includes a wound check especially if your pet has received intradermal sutures.

Please Note:

If at any stage after surgery you are concerned about how your pets is or how their wound is healing, please call us immediately and we will organize a vet to check your pet ASAP for free as part of our service.

We believe in supporting you and your pet after their procedure!