Follow-up lab work depends on what we find with the labs that we've done already. Sometimes, in perfectly healthy patients, as long as they're doing well, we'll recheck their lab work annually to make sure that everything still looks good at each annual wellness exam. There are some patients, however, where we might find new or ongoing illnesses that we might want to recheck every couple of months or every several weeks, if need be.

It depends on what we see with that individual patient. There are some patients where we might see some more concerning signs that might indicate that maybe we go a little bit more above and beyond than we would in a routine lab test or exam.

I highly recommend that all senior patients get at least routine lab work done. The reason is that our older patients aren't predisposed to lots of diseases like chronic kidney disease, diabetes, or any types of cancer, too. By having routine lab work done on our senior patients, it allows us for early detection and early intervention of diseases that can develop.

How soon you receive results really depends on the type of test that we're running. There are many different types of tests, including some in-house laboratory tests that we might get back the same day, versus some lab tests that we might send out for review to a pathologist, which sometimes can take a few days or even a couple of weeks to get results back on.

The safety of our patients is first and foremost in all of our minds. We have highly trained staff who are experienced in gently but safely restraining our patients to make sure that there are no accidents when we're collecting samples.

It's no more painful than we have our own blood drawn, because we do actually get poked with a needle to get the sample. But once we have the sample, there's no long-lasting pain in most of our patients.

Very similar to how blood is drawn in humans, we do actually take a needle and get a sample directly from their veins in one of their four legs. Very commonly, this gives us the sample that we need, and it's very non-invasive for most of our canine patients.

Whether follow-up lab work is needed depends on the initial findings. If annual lab work results are normal, retesting at the next annual visit is sufficient. If abnormalities are found, it might be necessary to recheck them to monitor any ongoing disease process. Lab work might be repeated in a few weeks or months to track disease progression and adjust treatment methods accordingly.

Healthy adult cats may need lab work to evaluate overall organ function or to look for evidence of illness. Cats are very stoic animals and it can be difficult to detect diseases early on if they're not showing outward signs of illness. By conducting annual lab work, it's possible to detect hidden diseases that may not be showing symptoms yet.