Request An Anesthesiologist

Comprehensive Anesthesia Planning For Your Pet

The team with Animal Dentistry Referral Services will create an anesthesia plan that is tailored to your pet. We take a number of factors into consideration, including your pet's age, current health condition fear and anxiety levels, as well as their pain level.  We'll evaluate the best choice of medications, and fluids needed. Your pet will be monitored throughout the procedure, and adjustments will be made as necessary. Should the need arise, we're prepared to intervene if complications arise. 

Why We Practice Increased Anesthesia Safety

A 2017 research article of over 2 million dog and cat anesthetic events showed the chance of death during or after anesthesia to be 0.05 to 0.11%. Interestingly, more cats died after minor procedures than other types of anesthetic procedures. This may be related to the fact that some pre-anesthetic testing is declined or overlooked for what is planned to be quick sedation. While our office has not seen this sort of minor procedure resulting in anesthesia problems, we work to do anesthetic testing and close monitoring to improve the outcomes. Patients get IV catheters and fluids to help recovery as well as provide an emergency port. The blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen level, temperature, and most importantly expired carbon dioxide are monitored to provide good medicine and improve safety as shown in a study by Brodbelt with 177,000 dogs and cats.

The typical patient we treat has a concurrent illness. While no anesthesia is 100% risk-free, we are used to dealing with involved anesthetic cases. The benefit of treating hidden painful dental problems that are known to affect the rest of the body far outweighs the risk in almost every case. Age is not a disease. A pet is not too old to have anesthesia. Patients with diabetes have less insulin resistance with good oral health. Treating pets that have dental problems is shown to reduce the risk of kidney problems by 23%. Another study showed pets with poor oral health was 6 times more likely to have heart issues. The increased systemic (whole-body) inflammation noted with and potentially a result of oral disease in pets leads to further illness. A 2019 study of 2 million pets showed that those with annual anesthetic dental procedures lived 20% longer.Treatment and prevention through complete professional anesthetic dental procedures with intraoral x-rays is the key to helping patients live longer, healthier lives.