Want your pet to be able to play like this their whole life?
Annual bloodwork is one of the most important services we recommend for our furry friends here at Newberry Animal Hospital, and unfortunately is often one of the most declined services as well. Here are the main reasons why we recommend your pet get a full bloodwork panel done at least once a year:
General Health
In a nutshell, bloodwork is here to help your veterinarian gauge the health of your pet’s internal organs and immune system. When your pet gets their blood drawn in one of our hospitals, the blood is then tested in a lab to determine its blood cell counts and values of various chemicals and substances associated with different organs. Values like Creatinine, BUN, and SDMA are used to indicate kidney health, while others like ALT and ALP are used to indicate liver health. All of these numbers will help us indicate your pet’s general health and will act as a baseline for us to use if your pet ever gets sick.
Identifying Disease
Once we do your pet’s initial blood panel, we will be able to use it as a baseline to help determine a diagnosis for potential future disease. For example if your pet starts to lose weight suddenly or starts urinating inappropriately, we can run their bloodwork again and see if there are any changes in specific enzyme or white blood cell levels that may indicate a certain type of illness or condition. In many ways this is one of the fastest ways we can diagnose a sick pet, and also serves as a guide for what treatment options may work best.
In addition to identifying disease based on their chemical values, bloodwork can also be used to determine if a pet is infected with various parasites or tick-borne diseases. Parasites such as heartworms - worms that can live in a pet’s heart and its surrounding arteries for 6 months before producing symptoms - can only be detected through a blood test. So even if your pet does not seem sick, their blood may indicate otherwise. This is why it is so important to keep your pet’s annual bloodwork up to date even if they seem perfectly healthy!
Pre-Surgical Care
Another reason we want to keep a pet’s bloodwork up to date is if they ever need to go under anesthesia for a surgical procedure. Remember how we said the whole point of bloodwork is to make sure a pet’s organs are healthy? Well, these same organs also need to be functioning properly in order for a pet to be safely put under anesthesia. For some pets with underlying conditions, we may need to limit how long they are under or in some scenarios may not be able to put them under at all and will have to explore other options. This is why we often recommend having a pet’s bloodwork updated before they get surgery - so we know what they can and can’t handle when it comes to anesthesia.
In conclusion, your pet’s bloodwork is one of the most effective ways for us to gauge their overall health and can help us speed up the treatment process when they get sick. If your pet needs their annual bloodwork updated, we will be happy to welcome them to any of our locations! You may even receive a pretty awesome portable pet water bowl when you do so!
39th Avenue: (352) 332-2292
Newberry: (352) 472-7035
Main Street: (352) 372-5391
Springhill: (352) 373-7208
Holistic: (352) 332-9991