Our In-House Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Charleston, SC
Exotic Vet Care uses the cutting-edge Abaxis VetScan 2 and i-STAT analyzers to process a wide range of blood labs and chemistries in-house. This equipment gives us the advantage of almost immediate results and more efficient treatments for our patients. From just a small sample of blood, we can evaluate your pet’s internal organ function and better determine their overall health.
What Our In-House Blood Testing Can Reveal
The diagnostic tests we offer and the advanced technology we use to perform them help us look below the surface and better understand your pet's health, inside and out. These tools can reveal all kinds of health changes that cannot be discovered during a physical examination. Furthermore, our testing equipment is important because many exotic species hide symptoms of illness and injury. Only with our exotic-specific lab and imaging capabilities can we provide the very best care for your unique pet.
COMPREHENSIVE LABORATORY SERVICES
Complete Blood Count or CBC
With just a few drops of blood we can examine the different cell types (red blood cells or erythrocytes, white blood cells or leukocytes, and platelets or thrombocytes) which can indicate the presence of many forms of disease. Most of these cells come from the bone marrow, so we can indirectly assess the health of the marrow. The CBC (complete blood cell) count can reveal:
- Infection
- Inflammation
- Anemia
- Blood parasites
Blood Chemistry Panel or Internal Body Function Tests
Blood chemistries can reveal any issues related to tissue and internal organ dysfunction and help to detect diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, and other disorders. Birds and reptiles can be more challenging so we routinely measure bile acid levels which is a liver function test.
Doing early disease blood screenings helps us establish a baseline of health for your pet, and can reveal problems well before any physical symptoms manifest. This is why we recommend routine exams and blood work; they help to ensure that any developing issues can be found and treated more quickly.
Fecal Analysis
In most species our laboratory technicians perform two types of tests to screen your pet for harmful internal parasites or “worms”. First we do a direct smear to look for protozoa and other potential parasites under the microscope. Secondly we do a fecal flotation test in which we process the stool sample and place it in a special solution so the parasite eggs “float” out of the sample and can also be examined under the microscope. These tests detect the eggs of mature parasites that live inside the body and pass their eggs to the outside by shedding them into the host's stool.
In most pet birds a fecal Gram stain will be done instead. It is used to identify bacteria, yeast and spore-forming bacteria that can cause serious illness in your pet.
We have an array of other in-house diagnostics and daily outsource samples for microbiology, toxicology, infectious disease screening and more.