How do I know if my cat will have a reaction to anesthesia?

Anesthetic reactions are exceedingly rare. We take anesthesia exceptionally seriously here. The veterinarian first checks any pet going under anesthesia or having an anesthetic procedure. We'll do a heart and blood screening to make sure your pet is healthy. And then we'll address any issues if they’re not. We use processes and procedures with highly trained technicians. And your pet is monitored to the highest degree when they’re under anesthesia. We're monitoring EKG, oxygenation, carbon dioxide, and pulse oximetry, and respiration. And somebody is assigned to do nothing but that. They stand there with a clipboard, as your pet is having anesthesia, monitoring these parameters. And if anything is off, we'll know and can address it literally within seconds. I'm very confident our anesthetic protocols here and the staff we have do a great job.

Well, what you're really asking is about anesthetic safety, and while no pet is without risk with anesthesia, the risks of having problems and painful, hidden problems in the mouth are very high. In contrast, the risk of anesthesia is about 0.0 or 0.1%. It's extremely low. And we try to do everything we can to prevent problems by doing blood work to tailor the anesthetic drugs to them by doing special heart enzyme tests. We had a patient with a murmur that we caught with this special tiny stethoscope, and we were able to modify our anesthetic plan and have increased safety and a good recovery.

And so, we do things to make administering anesthesia as safe as possible. For example, it’s been shown that a cat that has either no anesthesia and physical restraint or a cat that has sedation but not anesthesia has a higher risk of problems and/or death with those items than the patient that has what's called "multimodal pain management anesthetic event." And so we make it easier for the pet and have a better outcome.

It is natural for pet owners to be concerned about anesthesia risks. Veterinarians do everything they can to minimize these risks by conducting a thorough evaluation of the cat before the procedure. This includes full lab work and a pre-surgical EKG to check for any cardiac concerns. If any issues are found, further investigations are carried out before proceeding with anesthesia. If you have more questions or concerns, it is best to consult with your veterinarian.