At Magnolia House we take the health and safety of your pets very seriously. We do not believe in “one size fits all” and our anaesthesia protocols are carefully tailored to your individual’s pet requirements, in terms of drugs and dosages chosen, pre-operative preparation  and intra-operative management. We use the latest drugs and techniques to keep risks to a minimum and keep your pets as safe as possible!

Following admission on the morning of the scheduled procedure, your pet will be carefully examined to make sure no new abnormalities have cropped up since your last visit.

We offer pre-anaesthetic blood testing (optional for most of our younger patients and more routine surgeries, but strongly recommended for all middle aged and older or unwell patients) to check liver and kidney markers, blood sugar, protein levels and the red cell count. Knowing if there are any abnormalities help us adjust our anaesthesia and pain management protocols to still keep them as safe as possible, or sometimes delay the procedure until the underlying problems can be corrected.

All dogs and cats undergoing sedation or anaesthesia have an intravenous catheter placed. This allows us to titrate the minimum dose of anaesthetic agents needed, to administer intravenous fluids,  and in case of any complications (which are thankfully rare!) we can immediately administer medication as required to correct them. Most of our anaesthetised patients are given intravenous fluids for blood pressure support during the procedure.

Your pet will have a dedicated staff member holding their paw every step of the way, closely monitoring them throughout the procedure and into recovery. During the procedure your pet will have a number of monitors attached, measuring their blood oxygen concentration, carbon dioxide levels, respiratory rate, temperature, heart rate, blood pressure and ECG – just like in a human hospital. We also use specially designed heated blankets to help maintain body temperature during the procedure.

We are very proactive about pain relief, and our surgical patients will be given a combination of pain killers before, during and after the procedure to ensure they are as comfortable as possible. They will also be discharged with further pain killers to be given at home for a few days post-operatively.

We follow the guidelines of the Association of Veterinary Anaesthetists, of which Dalya is a member. To find out more, follow this link:

https://ava.eu.com/resources/anaesthesia-guidelines/

Frequently Asked Questions about Anaesthesia

Any sedative or anaesthetic event carries some risk. That risk is usually very very small for the young and healthy patients, and may be a bit higher for the older or unwell patients. We do absolutely everything we can to minimise that risk, as explained above. Your individual pet’s level of risk will be discussed with you prior to the operation.

With the exception of a few sedatives in some herding breeds (most notably Rough and Smooth Collies), there are no breed-specific problems with anaesthetic or sedative drugs. Some breeds carry a greater risk due to their anatomy (for example, brachycephalic breeds – dogs with squishy faces), but that has nothing to do with the way they metabolise the sedatives/anaesthetics.

The answer is similar to above, with one addition: the dose of anaesthetic or sedative is not fixed, it varies depending on the individual patient’s age, weight, health status, stress levels, amount of body fat, and metabolism. The dose is what that patient requires on that particular day, you cannot give less and you should aim not to give more.

In most cases, yes they can. The risk in an elderly patient may be a little bit greater than in a youngster as they are more likely to have underlying problems (e.g heart murmurs, kidneys disease, liver disease, anaemia), but in vast majority of cases the risk can still be managed and minimised by the techniques we have described above, and your pet can still have a good anaesthetic event.

Yes they can. The type and amount of medication may lead to some changes in our anaesthetic protocols, and in some cases we may ask you to temporarily stop the medication either before or after the anaesthetic, or to reduce the dose.

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