Frequently asked questions about anesthesia and surgery

1. What anesthetics do you use? Sevoflourane, Isoflurane, and Propofol.
2. What are these? Sevoflurane and Isoflurane are anesthetic gases; Propofol is an intravenous induction agent.
3. What is induction? It is the process of taking an animal from awake to anesthesia.
4. Do you give premedications like I had before surgery? Yes. Sedatives, tranquilizers, and pain medications may be given alone or in combination.
5. What drugs do you use for this? We use tranquilizers such as valium or acepromazine; pain medications such as buprenorphine, morphine, butorphanol; and non steroid anti inflammatory drugs.
6. Are patients intubated? Yes, patients are maintained on anesthesia by driving the anesthetic agent with oxygen through an airway tube known as an endotracheal tube.
7. How do you know you are not giving too much anesthesia? First of all, the anesthetics are delivered via a precision vaporizer so that we know exactly how much anesthetic we are giving and can adjust it very precisely. Second, measurements of patient status are constantly performed and this allows us to adjust the depth of anesthesia so we are not giving too much.
8. Who is in charge of giving my pet anesthesia? Your doctor is. They rely on the anesthetist chosen for the procedure. The anesthetist, whom you will meet prior to the procedure, is highly trained and compassionate surgical nurses.
9. Who makes sure my pet is ok after the procedure? The surgical nurse and the icu nurse. Someone will be with your pet until they are fully recovered.
10. How do I know you really care about what happens to my pet? Nothing is more important to us than to have your pet successfully recover from an anesthetic event. If necessary, we will involve every person in the hospital to do so. In the unlikely event a complication occurs, we have to know we did everything in our power and that we took every precaution possible to bring the patient through successfully. To do any less would conflict with our core values.
11. How safe is anesthesia really? The risk of a serious anesthetic complication is very rare, similar to what you might encounter for outpatient surgery in people.
12. Do you use the same anesthetics they use in people? Yes.
13. Can you tell if my pet has a higher risk of something going wrong? Yes.
14. How? Without a doubt, one of the most important keys to the safe conclusion of an anesthetic event is understanding patient status. What we learn during your pet's history and physical help us identify the three greatest risk factors: the presence of pre-existing illness, organ dysfunction, or sensitivity on the part of an individual to a particular anesthetic agent. In addition, we strongly recommend pre-surgical blood screens or profiles for all patients for all anesthetic procedures. In some cases, we are already aware of a pre-existing condition that should be monitored by these tests. In other cases, these tests may reveal a hidden illness or problem that could increase the patient's anesthetic risk. Complications to anesthesia are rare, but some are serious and may result in patient death. Under no circumstances do we want to jeopardize your pet's health if we feel the risk is too high.
15. Will you tell me? Yes.
16. Is anesthesia really necessary? In many cases the risk to the patient's health is higher if we do not perform anesthesia. Even in critically ill patients, anesthesia can be a life saving event. Nevertheless, we only recommend anesthesia when it is in the best interest of the patient.
17. What about my bird? The same is true for birds.
18. The same applies to birds? Yes.
19. You really operate on birds? Yes, we perform anesthesia successfully on birds every day.
20. So what about ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice, gerbils, hamsters, hedgehogs, prairie dogs, and chinchillas? Yes, we perform successful anesthetic procedures with the same care and attention as for dogs and cats. Depending on the species, specific techniques may be different but we still want to be sure the benefits outweigh the risks.
21. What about snakes and lizards? Yes we perform anesthesia and surgery on snakes, lizards, turtles, and even some frogs.
22. Does the risk increase if my pet has been anesthetized before? Not necessarily. Each anesthetic event is separate from another. Your pet's status may change, that is why we completely re evaluate your pet each time.Dr Paul Skellenger is the Veterinarian for Veterinarian Care. us and has over 20 years in Veterinarian medicine and experience with Surgery and Anesthesia. For additional information you can contact one of our Veterinarians in your area.