Wellness exams are an important part of overall veterinary care for cats, dogs and small mammals of any age. Just like our own doctors recommend regular check ups to evaluate overall health, the Parkside veterinary team recommends regular examinations for your pet to review overall wellness. And just like with humans, we recommend more frequent exams for our senior pets.
The fact is, our pets progress much more quickly through their lifecycle than we do. As a result, age related conditions or other physiological changes can happen much more rapidly. A regular wellness exam allows your veterinarian to identify these changes as quickly as possible!
What Happens During A Wellness Exam?
A wellness exam is more than just a physical! Here are a few of the key components to a good wellness plan:
- It’s an opportunity to start a dialogue between you and your veterinarian. This is a great time to ask any questions about changes in behavior that may actually be related to medical concerns.
- Wellness exams are a great time to provide vaccine boosters or discuss adding new vaccinations based on lifestyle changes.
- Our veterinarians may decide to collect blood work in order to catch disease early or to establish a baseline for future blood work.
- Standard fecal screening may be performed to check overall health and to identify the presence of any parasites.
- Urine screening can be done to identify renal disease as early as possible- especially for cats who are already prone to kidney disease.
- We can discuss managing body weight and diet choices.
- Our veterinarians will check up on dental disease or any other ongoing condition that may need treatment in the future. We can also discuss the variety of treatment options available including non-invasive options like laser therapy treatments.
- Wellness exams are also an opportunity for our veterinarians to practice preventative medicine for your pet.
Much of this will depend on your pet’s age and your lifestyle. As always, our Aurora veterinarians focus on individual care based on the needs of you and your pet.
We would the opportunity to discuss your pet’s health with you! Contact us today to schedule an appointment!