RE: Question for equine nurses

george hunt — Sun, 07 May 2017 08:28:31 GMT

Hi thanks for your reply. We do alot of standing dental surgeries that can very often be upto 2-3 hrs in duration and we maintain sedation on detomidine infusion. Due to the diuretic effect of sedation I feel that once a horse needs to urinate this overrides the sedation effect. And they start to wake up despite increasing drip rate. They will very often only pass overflow urine due to them not wanting to wee on a hard floor. We did a standing Arthroscopy a few weeks ago in which I placed a catheter to prevent contamination of surgical site and it worked really well. There are obviously disadvantages such as patient tolerance and risk of infection so was just interested to see what other practices found when doing these longer procedures x

RE: Question for equine nurses

apache — Sun, 07 May 2017 00:39:31 GMT

Sedated horses can (and frequently do) urinate.

We place a urinary catheter in anaesthetised horses so we can put as much fluid in IV to maintain blood pressure whilst under the anaesthetic, when the horse cannot voluntarily void urine.

Other than for something reconstructive involving the genital area (something like penile or recto-vaginal fistula repair) I fail to see any advantages or justification for placing a urinary catheter in a sedated individual.

What is your thinking, and how would this make the sedative 'smoother'?