Performing minor veterinary procedures - do you, or would you learn to?

[Ssthisto]

I'm starting to consider whether it might be an idea for me to learn how to do minor veterinary procedures on my own reptiles - nothing that is not legal for a non-veterinarian to perform (particularly, no body cavity surgery), but generally things that CAN be performed by the owner of the animal - emergency first aid, for example, or minor medical procedures.

The particular I have in mind is being able to give calcium injections before dystocia becomes serious enough to warrant a vet trip - and to prevent it from becoming that serious, because I trust my current "exotics" vet about as far as I can throw him when it comes to egg binding. However, I am certainly not going to try it on my live animals until I've been properly trained to do it and have practiced any procedure on inanimate objects and/or euthanased feeder mice.

Does anyone do this sort of thing themselves? How did you learn to do it?

[BADGERS MUM]

actually id be very interested to learn that type of thing,i self treat my dogs where possible,again as you said nothing major but things that ppl would take their dogs to the vets for,abcess' anal glands etc,i think it would be an excellent tool to have as rep vets or should i say good rep vets a few and far between

[Athravan]

The vet showed me how to give injections to snakes, lizards and tortoises and supervised me whilst guiding me on my own reptiles who needed it (mostly calcium and vitamin injections, but also some during antibiotic treatments) so that I could in future simply give medication to my own animals. I've also been shown how to suck out the eggs for egg binding but would never attempt that myself. Just ask if you can learn yourself and buy just the medication, and hopefully they will be accomodating?

[toyah]

I would recommend speaking to your vet. My vet is happy to allow me to give injections (depending on the medication, of course), and similar minor things, such as allowing me more freedom with medication than maybe some pet owners would get, plus help on doing gross autopsies on my animals.

If your vet is rubbish, I wouldn't recommend going on your own - I had to travel quite a distance to find a vet who was willing to help me learn, but it was worth it in the long run. But you do need veterinary backup on anything like that, you need someone with the experience and learning behind you otherwise you're not learning anything really.

[Ssthisto]

At this point, I'm going to hope that my usual exotics vet comes back from maternity leave before I start considering learning how to do any kind of minor medical treatment. She is very good, and has always been willing not only to answer my questions but to ask me for my knowledge of individual animals.

The other "exotics" vet in my area unfortunately asks a question and then talks over you and THEN gets care wrong... and is the one who suggested that an egg-bound gecko just be euthanised rather than trying oxytocin and calcium jabs or egg aspiration first.

I suppose I could make an appointment for one of our critters to have a checkup and ask one of the small-and-furry vets if they'd be willing to show me, far as it goes, should our normal vet not come back.

[corvid2e1]

I do a fair amount of minor medical treatment on a wide variety of animals, reptiles included. I give various diferent injections, to various species, I have set broken and dislocated wings, legs, toes and pelvis. I treat open wounds, infections, eye problems, plus plenty of other stuff i am probably forgeting right now. on the other side of it I also carry out several methods of euthanasia and post mortems. my situation is slightly diferent though. working at the wildlife centre I am getting in new patients daily, many of which require medical treatment so I have a fair bit of experience dealing with them. I also work very closely with many of the vets in my area, who actuly pass stuff on to us rather than treating it themselves. plus my best friend is also a vet, and she regualy helps me out and teaches me new methods and treatments, as well as looking at any PMs I can't figure out.

most decent vets will be happy to teach you minor stuff, such as how to give injections once they know you are sensible and genuinly know what you are doing.this will be helpful in that if your animal needs a course of injections you won't have to keep taking it in every time, however you will not be able to just say "hey my animal has this, I will just give it an injection" because you won't have the medication. that is perscription only, and most vets will be very carfull not to give you any more than what the animal needs at that time, so you will still have to take it in if something new comes up. even we still have that problem, although some of our vets are good enough to give us a little extra or perscribe a long course to something that is not going to survive because they know what we do.

[bribrian]

I just recently did an egg aspiration on one of my eggbound females (2 eggs), read up on the subject as much as possible etc & waited as long as i dared, bit the bullet & did the deed. Two hours later one egg was passed & the other came out 2 days later & the female is none the worse for it. It just needs a big deep breath to decide to do it....

where did you get your info from bribrian ?

[bribrian]

Originally Posted by Laura-LNV

where did you get your info from bribrian ?

A couple of US forums & there's a good pic on Kathy Loves site of her doing the deed....(i'll see if i can find it)
Use an 18g needle/10ml syringe, going in between the scales where the side scales meet the belly scales...

*** Found it *** http://cornutopia.com/Corn%20Utopia%...%20CAPTION.jpg

i`ll have a look at that...i couldnt do it myself though...far too squeeemish lol