Monitoring anaesthesia in chelonia

Re: Monitoring anaesthesia in chelonia

Celine — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:10:58 GMT

Good news, great to hear!

Re: Monitoring anaesthesia in chelonia

Leanne Henderson — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:22:53 GMT

Thanks for the info guys, really helpful.

Tort update: surgery went well yesterday, we managed to get a 12fg oesophageal steth down, 1 vet monitored hr + pull reflex and i monitored resps + manual ventilation!

Recovery was surprisingly quicker than we were all anticipating! Twts was nice and warm under his lamp post op and had a very small nibble at some dandelion leaves! But i think the vet might wanna tube feed him this morning as he hasnt eaten loads.

I really enjoyed taking part in his surgery as never assisted with a Tort GA before!

thanks again!

Re: Monitoring anaesthesia in chelonia

Celine — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:12:46 GMT

Oooooh and dont forget fluid therapy, get some nice warm epicoelomic fluids in asap and if tortoise isnt eating now then its unlikely to for a while after the op so seriously consider placing a feeding tube at the same time and get good nutrition into it from day one - it cant heal without food!!

Re: Monitoring anaesthesia in chelonia

Celine — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:22:58 GMT

I also use a doppler when possible - just a regular one you use for measuring BP. Use lots of gel and get the tort positioned before the vet starts draping up! Position of the actual probe varies from tortoise to tortoise, the heart is usually about 1/3rd of the way down the plastron. Best to have a play (if you can without stressing torty too much) before the actual op. Be aware they can have very low heart rates under GA so do get a pre-GA rate and then be prepared for it to drop to about 24 beats a minute..... this is not fun!! Different anaesthesia regimes will have different effects but you can use a palpebral / corneal / cloacal response to check.

You'll be able to use an oesophageal steth no problem, just extend the head and gently feed it down the mouth, premeasure to the same point on the plastron and just listen as you go.

Don't forget you'll want to keep them warm so I usually pop a temp probe (either an actual probe or a standard digital thermometer) in again before draping up and then try to keep it visible during op! Be careful not to overdo the heat, but you can use "hot hands" etc.

Do you have a capnograph? If not 4-8 breaths a minute is usually sufficient, but again a little scary. You can use a pulse ox on anything pink! And have a dig around because you may have a pulse-ox probe which came with the machine but no-one ever uses which is like a small square, this can be popped into the cloaca or inside the beak (so long as it's well asleep!!) and fiddled around to get a good reading.

At the end of the day, you are going to do your very best for this patient with or without lots of monitoring equipment, and you need to keep in mind that the alternative is euthanasia, and so long as the analgesia is up to scratch then hopefully the tort won't know anything about it, and if it sadly does pass away (and to be honest, with a traumatic injury like this it's not a low risk) it won't be because you haven't tried your best

Just keep feeding back info to your vet (who must be fairly confident to undertake something like this and hopefully has chelonian experience?) and they should give you some guidance.

Lots of luck!! (Feel free to PM me for any questions?)

Re: Monitoring anaesthesia in chelonia

katsutton — Sun, 12 May 2013 16:55:41 GMT

I've only recently started working in an exotics practice, so my experience isn't great, but I've picked up some things along the way. We use a electronic ventilator, which you program in how often you want inflating and how much to inflate by, we also use a doppler - Its really one of the only ways to be able to hear a tortoises heart. Unfortunately I haven't used an ET stethoscope in a tortoise.

Hope this helps :)