A Message to Our New Clients
(and to those who are thinking
about becoming new clients)
Thank you for taking the time to check out Sunnyside Veterinary Clinic. We appreciate your interest. If you are looking at this web page, you are probably trying to decide whether or not you want to bring your favorite non-human to see us. To help you make your decision, I'll cut to the chase and list the things that I believe set us apart from the other clinics in Idaho Falls. If you are in a hurry, just read the big blue headings. For more information, please read the fine print, and for more than you probably want to know, click the links.
We do all the regular stuff: vaccinations, lumps, bumps, sprains, fractures, vomiting, diarrhea, you name it. But there are some things that we feel we are particularly good at. These are the things that set us apart.
We are leaders in pain management.
We believe that animals feel pain just like humans do. That is why we cut no corners when it comes to pain management. Whether it is an older animal with arthritis, a younger animal being spayed, or an injured animal, we employ a variety of innovative, potent pain control techniques, such as pre-emptive pain medication, multi-modal pain management, epidural injections, pain patches, pain drips, and local blocks.
We believe that every surgery patient deserves excellent post-op pain control, so we use potent pre-op medications, and we believe every surgery patient should go home with enough medication to make them comfortable while they heal. We don't believe a single injection can cover all the bases. For more information, Click here for more than you ever wanted to know about pain management. We don't use every trick on every patient, but we have the clubs in our bag, so to speak. We would be happy to discuss post-op pain control with you.
We practice safe anesthesia
There is more to anesthesia than just falling asleep. Anesthesia is a balancing act between just being unconscious and being so deep that heart function, breathing, and blood pressure are compromised. Every individual is different, and will respond to the drugs in a different way. For this reason it is vital that we monitor very closely to detect problems early, and that we are ready and able to respond to the problems when they occur.
In a human operating room, there are machines to measure blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation, exhaled carbon dioxide, and heart electrical activity. Which ones do we have at Sunnyside Veterinary Clinic? All of the above. Click here to go to a page on Anesthetic Monitoring. If you don't monitor, you might not know you have problems until it is too late.
An intravenous catheter and fluid support during anesthesia is very important. Whenever a human is anesthetized, for whatever reason, there is always an intravenous catheter in place with fluids running. It would be malpractice not to do so. This allows us to treat low blood pressure when it occurs, and to have immediate access to the veins in case of emergency. For more information about this, click here.
We do dentistry right.
Say your car starts to make grinding noises in the transmission. You call up a mechanic and ask him how much to get your transmisison fixed. What does he say? He'll tell you that he can't give an estimate until after he takes it apart. He's got to know what is wrong before he can tell you how much to fix it.
Dentistry is like that. Studies have shown that up to 80% of pets need some dental work. Other studies have shown that as many as 40% of them have hidden problems that can only be seen on x-rays. That is why your dentist is always wanting to x-ray your teeth. You can't do good dentistry without x-rays. Also, in one mouth there can be some teeth that just need scaled and polished, other teeth with early periodontal disease that will need some root planing, still other teeth with advanced periodontal disease that need either deep root planing or extraction. All in one mouth. And you can't tell which is which just by looking.
The moral of this story is that if you call up a clinic and ask how much it will cost to get your dog's teeth cleaned and they tell you a canned price, you can know that unless we all get lucky and your pet does not have any problems besides tartar, they are either not going to find all the hidden problems or else they are not going to treat them at that price. That is why we don't quote dentistry prices over the phone.
At Sunnyside Veterinary Clinic, we focus on doing dentisrty, and we focus on doing it right. We take x-rays to find all the hidden problems. We use a variety of techniques, like root planing, implantable antibiotics, and gum resections to treat teeth with periodontal disease. When we have to extract, we often do it surgically to avoid complications. We suture most extraction sites to speed healing and improve patient comfort. We use all our skill at pain control to help our dental patients be comfortable. Click here to go to our Dental Links page.
We follow the new AAFP and AAHA vaccination guidelines.
There is some exciting new stuff in the field of dog and especially cat vaccinations, and not every clinic has joined the 21st century. The American Association of Feline Practitioners and the American Association of Animal Hospitals have published new guidelines for vaccinating dogs and cats. For dogs, this means that basically, it is not necessary to vaccinate for certain diseases as often as was once believed. For cats, the same is true. In addition, there is a small but real risk of developing fatal tumors if certain kinds of vaccines are used. We now use only vaccines that are not associated with this type of tumor formation. Click here to go to a page detailing the new vaccination program.
If you like what you see,
click here to go to the Dog and Cat Services page.
click here to go to the Home page
click here to go to a page for new equine clients
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