All About Pet Anesthesia
Anesthesia for Pet Dental Procedures
General anesthesia is required for the dental procedures we perform on your pets. Performing a thorough examination, dental scaling, probing and charting as well as advanced dental procedures all require your pet to be completely still during the procedure. Anesthesia also means they are unaware of what’s happening and free from pain and anxiety. We use only the safest anesthetic protocols that are individually created for each dog or cat. Protocols usually include injectables medications for sedation and pain management as well as gas anesthetic agents. The combination of pre-anesthetic assessment of your pet (including blood work), use of modern anesthetic agents in addition to the latest anesthetic monitoring equipment means that anesthesia is generally considered to be a very low risk for your pet. The veterinary dental team at the Animal Dental Center is professionally trained to provide the safest anesthesia possible while at the same time minimizing pain and anxiety for your pet.

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Maximizing Your Pet’s Comfort
We monitor your pet during the procedure and the recovery process using advanced monitoring equipment including pulse oximetry (blood oxygen level) electrocardiogram (EKG), core body temperature, respiratory rate, blood pressure and carbon dioxide level. We believe in performing dental treatments with advanced pain management techniques because we want to maximize the comfort of your pet during and after his/her procedure. Proper pain management also improves your pet’s recovery and speeds the healing process.
We Use Only the Amount of Medication Necessary
In order to place your pet safely under general anesthesia, we start by giving an injection of an axiolytic (anxiety reducing) sedative combined with pain medication. This allows the animal to relax and reduces the amount of anesthetic induction agent required to completely anesthetize. Anesthetic induction agents are medications given intravenously “to effect.” This means that the medication is given slowly into the intravenous catheter until the pet reaches the desired level of anesthesia. This method allows us to use only as much medication as that individual pet needs, and no more. Once they are induced an endotracheal tube is passed into the trachea (windpipe). The tube is is then used to administer oxygen mixed with the anesthetic gas we use to keep your pet anesthetized. Having the tube in place protects your pet’s lungs from plaque bacteria and other matter that is removed from the teeth during the ultrasonic cleaning process. An intravenous catheter placed in one of your pet’s limbs gives us direct access to your pet’s cardiovascular system to give medication or fluids as needed. Once the procedure is completed and the anesthetic is turned off, oxygen is continued to be delivered to your pet until they wake up and the tube is removed. The anesthetic gas is exhaled and thus allows for a quick recovery. This means your pet’s anesthesia will last only as long as it needs to.
Thinking about Anesthesia Free Pet Dentistry?



