In-House Diagnostics

Here at East Ridge Animal Hospital, we have our own in-house laboratory, which allows us to easily acquire diagnostic information about your sick pet. From fecal tests to blood work, our lab procedures can check a variety of ailments and usually give you results in under 15 minutes. This means our doctors can immediately begin treating your pet.

 

Additionally, our reference lab also offers a number of other tests, such as bacteria cultures, histopathology, and endocrine testing, to diagnose more complicated medical issues.

 

We only use the latest technology in digital radiography (X-rays) to diagnose and treat dental diseases for your pet, such as periodontal disease, fractured teeth, and tooth resorption. Both general and dental radiography can be easily completed right in our office. Digital X-rays allow us to get high-resolution images while decreasing the amount of radiation exposure involved. Dental X-rays are very helpful when it comes to the proper diagnosis of any dental diseases in pets.

 

Digatherm – Digital Thermal Imaging

Here at East Ridge Animal Hospital, we believe in providing the most efficient care for your pet. We have recently introduced Digatherm to our list of medical equipment. With the Digatherm, we are able to scan and see any pain and inflammation without touching the pet and, importantly, without any radiation being produced. It helps us measure energy radiated from the patients’ tissues which leads to early detection of disease symptoms.

 

 

Pets are unable to tell us where they are hurting and the symptoms they’re experiencing. The Digatherm allows us to view things we would not be able to see with the naked eye. It is especially useful in our patients that present with lameness or pain where the origin is not readily appreciated on our physical exam. By using the Digatherm to localize the lesion, we can then target our multi-modal treatment plan to a specific area on your pet’s body, making treatment much more patient and problem specific.

 

The Digatherm can also detect areas of disease prior to clinical symptoms becoming apparent, which makes including it in part of your preventative medicine visits, especially if you own an older animal, incredibly valuable to catching and preventing conditions before they become a clinical issue. Routine scanning of an older patient allows us to note areas of concern and continue to follow through each time we see your patient. Finally, the Digatherm allows us to make sure that the treatment plan we’ve selected to manage your pet’s complaint is working to improve and eventually resolve the problem. By continuing to follow up with routine scans during the selected treatment plan, we have quantifiable data showing that our treatment is working or that we may need to consider moving onto another treatment option for your pet.