Anaesthesia
We pride ourselves on keeping up-to-date with new anaesthetic drugs, techniques and equipment to ensure that your pet receives “gold standard” anaesthesia. If the veterinary surgeon needs to give your pet an anaesthetic we will tailor the drugs to your animal and the particular condition.
On admission for surgery, your pet will be given a pre-medication of a tranquiliser and a painkiller. This will reduce any fear your pet may be feeling and enable a smoother induction and recovery from the anaesthetic. We use propofol as our induction agent - the same agent that is used in human aneasthesia - which is injected into the vein in your pet’s front leg. Once your pet is asleep we place a tube into the trachea to maintain an airway throughout the anaesthetic. This also allows us to connect oxygen and the inhalation anaesthetic gas, isoflurane, to keep your pet asleep. Once the procedure is finished we turn off the anaesthetic gas and your pet will awake smoothly from his or her sleep.
Throughout the operation your pet will be monitored by trained staff who record your pet’s heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature. We also have modern equipment that will tell us your pet’s oxygen saturation, carbon dioxide input and output, ECG and blood pressure. We hope that the combination of safe and fast-acting drugs will allow your pet a quick and comfortable recovery from surgery.
Not all procedures require a full anaesthetic and can sometimes be done using sedative. Your pet will still need to stay with us for a few hours so we can monitor their recovery. The sedative that we use has an antidote to it which makes it much safer and the time that your pet needs to stay with us is much reduced.
If you have any further queries about a procedure your pet may need to have then please do not hesitate to give us a call or pop in. We will be pleased to put your mind at rest.
