Anesthesia & Analgesia

Our Philosophy

Anesthesia plays a crucial role in a thorough dental cleaning and oral examination for cats and dogs. To put it in context, many humans experience considerable stress and anxiety when visiting the dentist (including Dr. Grellmann!). Now, consider the stress and challenges our pets face during this experience, especially if they are dealing with oral pain! Our beloved animal companions lack the understanding of why we are working in their mouth during a simple dental cleaning and oral exam, which can lead to a traumatic experience and the possibility of injuring our pets during the process (those instruments are sharp!).

Today, many groomers and veterinary practices may provide non-anesthetized dental cleanings as part of their services. It's important to acknowledge that they likely have your pet's best interests in mind, taking into consideration what your pet is willing to tolerate. Fortunately, an attentive groomer and veterinary team may be able to identify readily apparent issues such as loose teeth, discolored teeth, or signs of oral discomfort while handling the mouth. This can facilitate an important conversation with the pet owner to have the mouth more carefully evaluated under anesthesia as soon as possible to diagnose and treat dental disease.

Non-Anesthetized Dental Cleaning:

Only cleans the outside surface of our pets' teeth (not below the gum line)
Cannot perform a complete oral exam with periodontal probing & dental radiographs (x-ray pictures)
Risk of injury to the pet during cleaning with sharp instruments in the mouth

Anesthetized Dental Cleaning & Treatment:

Professional cleaning of both the exterior & subgingival (below the gum line) regions of the teeth (this is where periodontal disease hides!)
A complete oral examination with periodontal probing, dental radiographs (x-ray pictures), & evaluation of the whole mouth (e.g., tongue, tonsils, & palate)

Anesthesia vs. Analgesia

Anesthesia
Anesthesia is essentially inducing controlled unconsciousness, where your pet's level of consciousness is controlled so they do not move and do not perceive pain. Even though your pet may be unconscious during surgery and unaware of your pain, your pet can still technically sense pain and respond to it.

Most healthy pets, even senior pets, can often undergo anesthesia if done with planning and care.

As with any medical procedure, there is always a small amount of risk associated with anesthesia. Anesthesia is made as safe as possible by careful physical examination, screening internal organ function, and providing thoughtful anesthetic monitoring throughout the procedure. However, there is always a very small risk of cardiovascular arrest, respiratory arrest, and sudden death during or after an anesthetic event. sometimes, these complications cannot always be predicted.
- In healthy cats and dogs, the perianesthetic death rate is 0.12%.
- In cats & dogs with significant disease or multiple diseases, the perianesthetic death rate is 4.8%.
Generally, the risk increases in animals with other significant diseases and older animals due to aging of the internal organs and increased risk of occult (undetected) disease in geriatric pets; therefore, it is important to minimize this risk as much as possible by addressing dental disease at an earlier age, while the dental disease is minimal and more manageable, and while your pet is less likely to have other concurrent diseases.
Analgesia
Analgesia is the inability to feel pain.
An analgesic is a medication for pain.

The use of pain medication scan reduce the amount of anesthesia needed for the procedure, and therefore reduce the side effects of the anesthetic medications, making anesthesia safer for the patient.

There are 3 main types are pain:
- Nociceptive pain,
  where the pain is caused by tissue damage.
- Neuropathic pain,
  where the pain is caused by nerve damage.
- Psychogenic pain,
  where the pain is affected by psychological factors(e.g., fear, stress, and/or anxiety). In this case, the pain most likely started as either tissue or nerve damage.
Multimodal analgesia is the practice of combining multiple pain medications and/or pain management techniques for multiple pain pathways. Since there are multiple types of pain and multiple steps in the pain pathway, the use of different types of medications concurrently can help to provide better pain management.

We will work closely with you to assess your pet for signs of pain because often our pets do not communicate pain the way we think they would or should.