Do you need to take your pet to a veterinary specialist?
As a board-certified veterinary emergency specialist, I’m often amazed at what owners will put up with from their vets. Take a recent client of mine. She’d brought her sick cat to her regular veterinarian, who said Felix needed to stay for intravenous fluids. The vet didn’t have 24-hour care, though. So Felix’s owner picked her cat up at 5 P.M. and drove him to the local “after-hours” emergency clinic; the next morning, she got to the clinic before it closed at 8 A.M. so she could bring Felix back to her vet. She did this a total of seven times over the course of four days before she and Felix ended up in the emergency room of the university vet school where I work.
When I saw her, she was physically, mentally, and financially exhausted. And Felix was really, really sick—he was in severe kidney failure and needed much more aggressive care than either his regular vet or the after-hours clinic had been able to give (a feeding tube to start him on some much needed calories, a urinary catheter, and a special catheter in his jugular vein to maximally flush toxins out of his kidneys). Don’t worry: Felix survived. But it was touch and go, and the process cost his owner thousands more than it needed to.
I promise I don’t have my eye on my wallet when I say this: There are times when your pet needs someone other than the wonderful vet you’ve been using for years. People tend to be reluctant to ask if a specialist might be helpful—who wants to risk causing offense or hurt feelings? But from my vantage point at what’s called a tertiary-care center, where the very sickest animals end up, I’d say that’s one of the biggest mistakes people make at the vet.
Here’s a simple way to think about it: If you’d need to go to a specialist for a problem, your dog or cat probably does, too. A general practice vet doesn’t usually do hundreds of ultrasounds or bone marrow tests a year even if he has the equipment, so it would be strange if he were as adept at doing the tests as a dedicated veterinary ultrasonographer (AKA radiology specialist) or internal medicine specialist, respectively. Same holds true for other advanced or invasive tests or treatments. If you’re really uncomfortable raising the issue with your vet, keep in mind that unlike in human medical care, you don’t actually need your vet to refer you to a specialist—you can just pick up the phone.
On the other hand, another common mistake I see is that people don’t go to their regular vet enough—fast enough, that is. It can seem reasonable to wait a while to see if your pet’s decreased appetite, lethargy, or general malaise improves on its own. But it actually takes a lot for your tail-thumping dog or self-contained, stoic cat to show those signs of illness. For those sorts of somewhat vague symptoms, it’s generally fine to wait a day—but if you wait two days with no signs of improvement, you can have a full-blown emergency on your hands. Of course, no fair taking my advice as license to wait around if you just saw your dog lap up antifreeze or your cat’s been munching on dental floss or poisonous lily plants!
The third major error in my book is that people think their vet is all about vaccines. I know you can’t believe a bona fide veterinarian is actually suggesting this, but chances are good that if your pet isn’t a baby, you should skip the shots this year. The reason: Once he’s gone through the full puppy or kitten series of shots and has had annual vaccines for four to five years, his immune system is in good shape. At that point, to get the maximum protection with the fewest possible side effects, current veterinary recommendations are to switch to vaccines every two or three years—depending on your state’s laws on rabies shots (which must be kept up to date). Now, don’t interpret this to mean you get to kiss your vet goodbye between-times. A middle-aged or geriatric pet still needs an annual physical exam, which should include routine blood work to check how well her kidneys and liver are working, and to look at her electrolytes and red and white blood cell counts. Abnormalities in these levels can be warning signs of disease, so those tests can help you detect a problem sooner rather than later. But if your vet pushes for yearly vaccines, know that you can decline them. That’s right, folks—just say you’re electing not to vaccinate this year, according to the latest recommendations, and would rather have just an annual exam.
When in doubt, demand the best care for your pet. Felix’s owner did, and it ended up saving Felix’s life. After all, with the improvement in the overall quality of veterinary care and increase in veterinary specialists available, we want our pets to live as long as we humans do! It’s one thing to be needle- and doctor-phobic yourself… just don’t make the same mistakes with your pet!
Have any bad experience with your specialist? Let me know!
Signing off,
Dr. Justine Lee
Biography:
Dr. Justine Lee is a veterinary emergency critical care specialist and the author of It’s a Dog’s Life… but It’s Your Carpet: Everything you ever wanted to know about your four-legged friend and It’s a Cat’s World… You Just Live In It: Everything you ever wanted to know about your furry feline
When I saw her, she was physically, mentally, and financially exhausted. And Felix was really, really sick—he was in severe kidney failure and needed much more aggressive care than either his regular vet or the after-hours clinic had been able to give (a feeding tube to start him on some much needed calories, a urinary catheter, and a special catheter in his jugular vein to maximally flush toxins out of his kidneys). Don’t worry: Felix survived. But it was touch and go, and the process cost his owner thousands more than it needed to.
I promise I don’t have my eye on my wallet when I say this: There are times when your pet needs someone other than the wonderful vet you’ve been using for years. People tend to be reluctant to ask if a specialist might be helpful—who wants to risk causing offense or hurt feelings? But from my vantage point at what’s called a tertiary-care center, where the very sickest animals end up, I’d say that’s one of the biggest mistakes people make at the vet.
Here’s a simple way to think about it: If you’d need to go to a specialist for a problem, your dog or cat probably does, too. A general practice vet doesn’t usually do hundreds of ultrasounds or bone marrow tests a year even if he has the equipment, so it would be strange if he were as adept at doing the tests as a dedicated veterinary ultrasonographer (AKA radiology specialist) or internal medicine specialist, respectively. Same holds true for other advanced or invasive tests or treatments. If you’re really uncomfortable raising the issue with your vet, keep in mind that unlike in human medical care, you don’t actually need your vet to refer you to a specialist—you can just pick up the phone.
On the other hand, another common mistake I see is that people don’t go to their regular vet enough—fast enough, that is. It can seem reasonable to wait a while to see if your pet’s decreased appetite, lethargy, or general malaise improves on its own. But it actually takes a lot for your tail-thumping dog or self-contained, stoic cat to show those signs of illness. For those sorts of somewhat vague symptoms, it’s generally fine to wait a day—but if you wait two days with no signs of improvement, you can have a full-blown emergency on your hands. Of course, no fair taking my advice as license to wait around if you just saw your dog lap up antifreeze or your cat’s been munching on dental floss or poisonous lily plants!
The third major error in my book is that people think their vet is all about vaccines. I know you can’t believe a bona fide veterinarian is actually suggesting this, but chances are good that if your pet isn’t a baby, you should skip the shots this year. The reason: Once he’s gone through the full puppy or kitten series of shots and has had annual vaccines for four to five years, his immune system is in good shape. At that point, to get the maximum protection with the fewest possible side effects, current veterinary recommendations are to switch to vaccines every two or three years—depending on your state’s laws on rabies shots (which must be kept up to date). Now, don’t interpret this to mean you get to kiss your vet goodbye between-times. A middle-aged or geriatric pet still needs an annual physical exam, which should include routine blood work to check how well her kidneys and liver are working, and to look at her electrolytes and red and white blood cell counts. Abnormalities in these levels can be warning signs of disease, so those tests can help you detect a problem sooner rather than later. But if your vet pushes for yearly vaccines, know that you can decline them. That’s right, folks—just say you’re electing not to vaccinate this year, according to the latest recommendations, and would rather have just an annual exam.
When in doubt, demand the best care for your pet. Felix’s owner did, and it ended up saving Felix’s life. After all, with the improvement in the overall quality of veterinary care and increase in veterinary specialists available, we want our pets to live as long as we humans do! It’s one thing to be needle- and doctor-phobic yourself… just don’t make the same mistakes with your pet!
Have any bad experience with your specialist? Let me know!
Signing off,
Dr. Justine Lee
Biography:
Dr. Justine Lee is a veterinary emergency critical care specialist and the author of It’s a Dog’s Life… but It’s Your Carpet: Everything you ever wanted to know about your four-legged friend and It’s a Cat’s World… You Just Live In It: Everything you ever wanted to know about your furry feline
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