Diagnostic Services
X-Rays for Your Dog or Cat
Over the past few years veterinary X-rays have become far more powerful and useful than ever before, principally because they can now be taken digitally and displayed on a computer. This means that your veterinarian can quickly take a highly detailed image and then manipulate it to gain a better view of your pet’s bones and internal organs. The result is that diagnosing a very wide range of medical conditions is made faster and far more accurate than ever before.
Because All Friends Animal Hospital believes that pet owners throughout Norwich and New London County, Connecticut, deserve the best possible care, we offer state-of-the-art digital veterinary X-rays. These images can easily be placed on a disk for our clients to take with them. We also work with a board-certified radiologist with whom we can easily share these images when necessary.
Advantages of Digital Veterinary X-Rays
- Digital X-rays can be saved to a disk and given to you as part of your pet’s home medical record.
- Images can be quickly shared via email to specialists when a second opinion or additional diagnosis is needed.
- Your pet's time on the X-ray table is reduced because fewer images need to be taken.
- Digital X-rays eliminate the need to use toxic chemicals in the film development process, decreasing the risk of exposure to our staff and the environment.
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is a very important diagnostic tool because it allows your veterinarian to gain a very precise look at your pet’s internal organs, chest and abdomen without surgery or sedation.
In particular, ultrasound is invaluable for making treatment decisions for various types of heart disease, assess the function and health of internal organs, and identify lesions, determine their origin, and see if they have spread to other areas of the body. Ultrasound is also a very powerful surgical aid such as by helping guide your veterinarian while obtaining a biopsy or removing a foreign object from your pet.
In most cases, the procedure is relatively brief, less than an hour, and your pet is able to go home the very same day. Most importantly, though, your veterinarian will be able to make a highly accurate diagnosis of your pet's condition and provide effective treatment recommendations.
At All Friends Animal Hospital we work with a board-certified ultrasonographer who comes to our hospital to perform cardiac and abdominal ultrasounds as well as guided biopsies.
Our Veterinary Lab
One of the most important aspects of any preventative medicine regimen is the ability to analyze how well your pet’s internal organs and processes are functioning. For example, are the kidneys and liver doing their jobs at removing waste? Does your pet have internal parasites? Is a growth on your pet’s skin benign?
Laboratory testing allows your veterinarian to gain a view inside your pet’s body in order to assess overall systemic health without the need for invasive and expensive procedures. This is why All Friends Animal Hospital maintains an in-house laboratory and regularly tests your pet during wellness exams or when we suspect your pet may have a health issue. Our laboratory allows us to perform urinalysis, parasite identification, blood chemistry testing, and more. In some cases, we can receive results within 30 minutes or less.
We will also perform lab testing prior to procedures that require anesthesia so that we can be sure your pet will not have an adverse reaction.