What is an echo?
An echo is an ultrasound of the heart. I'm just learning and getting better, but eventually, we will be able to have echo services where we can better evaluate your pet's heart disease.
What does that mean? How do you know if your pet has heart disease?
For a lot of our canine and feline patients, there may be no symptoms of heart disease or even a heart murmur. We often find this on an exam. Oftentimes, during our regular exam, we may hear a murmur without seeing any symptoms. The earlier we diagnose problems with the heart, the better. With this ability to perform an ultrasound of the heart, we'll be able to find out the severity, thickness of those heart muscles and valves, and be able to grade that heart disease.
How do you grade heart disease?
There's a scale that we use to grade heart disease and heart murmurs, which dictates when and if we need medication. This can be super helpful. These are often diagnoses that we hear, and sometimes you may experience symptoms at home. There are points where you will see symptoms like coughing, and we'll get into that.
What does an echocardiogram show that an x-ray doesn't?
An x-ray shows us if the heart is enlarged, if it's in the right position, and some other things. An echocardiogram, on the other hand, will show us the valves themselves, the differences in the chambers, and whether the muscle or the chamber itself is enlarged. These can dictate different kinds of heart disease. It's really important to know if it's the muscle, the chamber, or the valve. These are all different components within the heart that we can't see on x-ray, and an echo can help differentiate them for us.
Can an echo help with other conditions?
Yes, in our cats that sometimes get saddle thrombus, which can be really sad due to blood clots getting stuck, we can sometimes catch those earlier by finding the blood clots within the heart before they spread. We can then give medication to dissolve them. These are all great tools that we now have at our disposal, which is amazing.
What is the prognosis for patients with heart disease?
This is another big question that I get asked a lot. It depends on how soon we find out and start medications at the appropriate time, because it doesn't do much to start medications if they don't have signs of heart disease and damage to the heart. Once we see signs and grade the heart with an echo, starting medication at the appropriate time can drastically prolong the lifespan of pets with heart disease, which is great.
What's a board-certified cardiologist?
I am NOT one. Here at the University Animal Clinic, I'll be able to perform an echo and send it off to be evaluated by a cardiologist. I'm going to be capturing images of the heart with the ultrasound, and we'll be able to send those off for evaluation. The cardiologist will measure, evaluate, and help us grade heart disease. This is a great tool because we have very few certified cardiologists in our area. There are some, and when needed, they are super important for us to refer our patients to. But when it's really mild and in the early stages, we can help take the burden off those cardiologists, helping get diagnoses early and preventing people from going to them unless truly needed, which is great. We save it for those pets that truly need it, and when necessary, we will refer you to the cardiologist for further workup and care, as there is more that can be done beyond the echo. These are all great things that we can do here.
Do pets need sedation for an echo?
We will ask our pets to get a little bit of sedation at home, but they shouldn't need too much sedation here, which is great.
Do you have to shave pets for an echo?
It just depends on the hair coat of the pet. For longer-haired pets, we're going to ask that they be shaved because we can get better contact of the ultrasound probe to the skin with the ultrasound jelly if there's no hair there. We can always discuss that when we recommend it.
How can people ask questions or schedule an echo?
If you have questions about echo, heart disease, or anything else, let us know. You can post questions in the comments here on YouTube, and I will be happy to answer them. If you want to get your pet scheduled for our first echoes, we're doing them at about half off of what we will eventually charge while I'm still learning and getting practice with this new tool. If you have questions, let us know. Thanks!
If you still have other questions and you'd like to reach out to us, you can call us directly at (941) 253-5218, or you can email us at staff@uacvet.com. But please do reach out, and we'll get back to you as fast as we can. Don't forget to follow us on social media Facebook, Instagram