If your pet’s wellness screening results are normal, that is extraordinary. Learning that your furry pal is normal during their annual veterinary exam is wonderful news, and normal wellness screening results can put your mind at ease if you’re concerned about your pet’s health and wellbeing. In addition to granting you invaluable peace of mind, your pet’s normal wellness screening results provide numerous other benefits. Our Smithtown Animal Hospital team explains a pet’s normal wellness screening results’ value.

Normal wellness screening results reveal your pet’s inner health

While your four-legged friend may appear perfectly normal on the outside, without conducting diagnostic tests, such as blood work, urinalysis, fecal exam, X-rays, or other tests, our veterinary team does not know what’s happening inside your pet’s body. By performing diagnostic tests, we can detect anemia, infection, organ dysfunction, parasitic infections, and other abnormalities that a physical exam may not determine.

Normal screening results reveal that your pet is just as healthy on the inside as they appear on the outside. These results also help establish what our team considers as being your pet’s normal good health values.

Normal wellness screening results create a pattern for your pet

By performing screening tests at your pet’s annual wellness visits, our Smithtown Animal Hospital team can determine your cat’s or dog’s normal values. While each test has an acceptable results range, this spectrum is based on average values. Your pet’s normal may not fall within this range, although they have no health issues. Over time, serial screening test results form a pattern of your pet’s normal values, and we will easily be able to identify minor fluctuations that may indicate a health concern. Without regular screening tests and normal results, our team would have difficulty spotting an issue with a one-off test.

Normal wellness screening results help detect problems early in your pet

As your pet’s screening test results are normal year after year, you may wonder why your cat or dog must continue being tested during annual wellness visits. While your pet’s normal results are wonderful news, they are also important for helping our team spot disease in its earliest stage. 

For example, if your cat’s kidney values creep up year after year, despite remaining within the acceptable normal value range, we may suspect that your whiskered pal has kidney dysfunction, although the condition is not yet severe. To determine if these changes are significant, we may recommend additional testing, such as more specific kidney function tests and an abdominal ultrasound. By conducting additional tests, our team can verify whether your cat does indeed have kidney dysfunction, and we can begin an effective management plan to slow the disease’s progress. 

Normal wellness screening results guide future treatment plans for your pet

If your pet has been diagnosed with a chronic condition, such as heart disease or arthritis, they need regular veterinary monitoring to ensure their condition remains stable. Our Smithtown Animal Hospital team can perform your pet’s testing during your cat’s or dog’s wellness visits. However, more frequent monitoring will also be necessary to help determine if prescribed drug dosages remain in the therapeutic range and to monitor the disease’s progression.

When we perform tests to evaluate your pet’s ongoing response to therapy and disease progression, normal results are the best news for which we could hope. For example, if your pet has developed congestive heart failure, we want to ensure medication dosages are appropriate to minimize potential side effects. Normal results indicate that diuretic medication is not causing an electrolyte imbalance and that your pet’s heart is functioning well enough to prevent fluid accumulation within the lungs. If your pet’s values change, our team may need to adjust your furry pal’s treatment plan, or we may perform additional testing to determine if new health concerns have developed.

Normal wellness screening results verify preventive veterinary care’s efficacy

Preventive veterinary care measures are extremely effective, but they may not be able to protect your pet 100% against infectious pathogens, parasites, and diseases if your pet is not on board with your preventive care plan. Your cat or dog may spit out their heartworm medication behind the couch, or they may growl in disapproval at the toothbrush. By conducting wellness screening tests, our team can identify gaps in your pet’s protection and ineffective preventive care. When your pet’s screening test results are normal, you can rest assured that your cat’s or dog’s preventive care strategy is effective.

Learning that your furry pal is normal is a wonderful experience. Schedule your pet’s annual wellness visit with our Smithtown Animal Hospital team.