Anaesthesia And Sedation

Anaesthesia And Sedation

At Nissen Street Veterinary Surgery every procedure is treated as a serious undertaking and all possible precautions are taken to ensure the best recovery for your pet. We only use the safest drugs and practices to minimise any risk pre-operatively, during anaesthesia and during the post-operative period.

Upon admission to hospital a thorough history is taken and a clinical exam performed. An optional blood test is then undertaken (mandatory for patients 7 years and older) to ensure adequate organ function to process and eliminate anaesthetic medications. Depending on the procedure required patients are then administered a short-acting ‘twilight’ anaesthesia or placed under a full general anaesthesia. Those who require to be placed under a full anaesthesia are then provided a sedative and pain relief injection and commenced on intra-venous fluids.

Intra-venous fluids assist with maintaining blood pressure and tissue perfusion with blood during anaesthesia and in the elimination of anaesthetic drugs. Once sufficiently sedated the patient is ‘pre-oxygenated’ to minimise any risk of a decrease in oxygen supply to the brain on induction of anaesthesia. Once sufficiently prepared anaesthesia is induced via an intra-venous injection and they are intubated to supply oxygen and anaesthetic gas to the patient.

By the time the procedure is completed the injectable induction agent has been eliminated by the body and, once the gas is adequately expired from the lungs, the patient gradually wakes and regains normal respiratory function allowing the breathing tube to be removed.

Throughout this entire process the patient temperature is monitored and heating provided by heat mats and machines to warm the inspired air and the intra-venous fluids.

Further monitoring of heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood are performed manually (by a nurse) and electronically by bed-side machines.

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