Ali gets his teeth cleaned!

This is Ali. (He is a very distinguished cat.) He was told he needed a dental cleaning by Dr. Carey. His blood work results all came back normal from his Wellness visit on February 10, 2009(see blog on that date). (He is very overweight so his "mom" was very glad he did not prove to be diabetic!)

First he was checked in by a registered veterinary technician (RVT). Our hospital has 5 of those on staff! Then he was examined again by Dr. Carey to make sure that he checked out okay for his anesthesia.
After that exam he was given some pre-meds
by Dr. Carey's surgical technician team. All our doctors (we have 7!)have at least 2 RVT's that work with them on their surgery days. Dr. Carey's surgery day is Wednesday. Pre-surgical medications help with pain, inflammation, and help to "take the edge off" while a patient is waiting for a procedure. Ali was very good and the pre-med's didn't bother him at all. This is Ali with his RVT, Tammy.

He is ready for his anesthesia so he is given an IV dose of anesthetic drugs that make him sleep for about 5 minutes. This gives us enough time to intubate him so we can hook him up to a gas anesthetic machine that will keep him asleep until we turn the gas off and wake him up.
During this time he is on a heating pad, he is on a respiratory monitor, and he is hooked up to a blood pressure monitor. If their pressures get to low (as Ali's started to) or to high we adjust their gas levels and/or fluids to help with their blood pressure. There are other steps we take if we continue to get abnormal readings. We take very good care of our patients! His teeth are cleaned, probed for pockets, rinsed with an oral hygiene rinse and fluoride given.
If we would of found any abnormalities then we would of x-rayed and or pulled any necessary teeth that need to come out. Some animals come in and their teeth are so bad that they actually feel better immediately after their procedure. In fact, we once had a twenty year old cat that was not eating and pawing at it's mouth. We removed some nasty teeth and the cat ate that night!

Here are Ali's before and after pictures, taken while he is still intubated.

Almost all our patients go home the same day after surgery or dentistry. There a few exceptions such as major surgeries or pets that have extensive dental work done. Ali went home the same evening and is feeling great.