An ultrasound may be something that our veterinarians recommend as part of your pet’s treatment plan. An ultrasound is a very useful tool to help us diagnose conditions in animals, especially for conditions involving soft tissues such as the abdomen or the heart.
Ultrasound is a painless procedure that uses high frequency sound waves inaudible to humans to produce images of organs within the body. When the waves hit the tissue within the body, some are absorbed and some bounce back. The sound waves that bounce back are measured by the probe and create an image on the screen. Ultrasound is most useful to assess fluid filled or soft tissue structures, and less useful for bone or air-filled lungs.
Most animals will be admitted for the day to have their ultrasound done, however in an emergency situation we can often arrange the ultrasound to be performed with you waiting. All pets should be fasted overnight prior to their scan as most animals require sedation to enable us to get the best images possible. The other reason we fast them is that food within the stomach and intestines will have gas around it which reduces the detail we can see of the abdomen.
Hair on your pet’s skin will reduce the quality of the images so the area that we scan will be shaved. Water soluble gel is applied over the clipped area and a probe is used onto the skin to get the images.
We service many suburbs of North Western Adelaide metropolitan area in South Australia (SA).
Please click on the map below to see an alphabetical list of suburbs we commonly service.
