Testing the red stuff
the temperature idea. So the next thing to do is a blood test and urine test. A little sedation, a small needle and several hours later we had our answer. Mater is a diabetic with a high-blood and urine glucose level. He is now on a special diet and treatment programme and doing really well.
More commonly, kidney disease is the cause of drinking a lot in cats. A blood test can pick up early signs and we can do a lot to help them in the early stages. The blood test measures the level of three things in their blood that indicate how well the kidneys are functioning.
Other common things blood tests in cats can determine: thyroid function, red blood-cell levels, liver disease, viral tests (for example, FIV, which is the equivalent of HIV in cats) and white cell levels for signs of infection.
Blood tests in the larger toothed patients are similar, but with some slight differences.
Onyx is, yes you guessed it, a jet black terrier with an unusually laidback attitude.
But on Monday, he wasn’t at all happy after a night of vomiting and a sore belly. I had my suspicions, but a blood test confirmed that he had a huge rise of two enzymes in his blood, which come from his pancreas. Pancreatitis was his problem, so he was on to a drip and medication.
Cases aren’t often as easy as these examples though and sometimes blood tests from a sick patient can come back as normal results. It doesn’t mean that the patient is OK. It just means that the illness can’t be detected by a blood test. I mean, if we have a headache, a blood test won’t detect it. Or if a cat has a stomach upset, a blood won’t detect it, but it will eliminate a few other causes, such as liver or kidney disease.
Other common reasons for blood tests in dogs include: Anaemia Generalised infection Inflamed pancreas Diabetes Liver and kidney disease Ability to clot their blood And lots more...
But one important misunderstanding, as I mentioned last week, is that blood tests don’t often identify tumours. Just as in people, these nasty things can lead us on a long detective path before we find them or they become large enough to detect.