Like every pet, your cat is also susceptible to cat health problems and proper medical diagnosis is required for before specific treatments can be prescribed. Even when your pet may not show any signs of being sick, a medical checkup can reveal whether it is really well or not. Your vet will prescribe a set of diagnostic tests to be done to find out the actual health condition of your cat. When there is a specific illness involved, the diagnostic tests for revealing cat health problems will vary from the ones related to a general health checkup. This article helps you to understand the procedures better.
Diagnostic tests for your cat can reveal a lot of information related to its health. Sometimes a mere physical examination is not enough to know whether your cat is really fine or not.
• Diagnostic tests can help the vet to localize or characterize a problem in the cat and then treat the ailment accordingly.
• Some ailments such as cancer, kidney or heart diseases do not show up as cat health problems until in the progressive stages. Diagnostic tests can help in identifying them in early stages so as to provide better treatment options.
• Another great benefit that medical diagnostic tests can provide is to monitor the progress of a treatment. Serial blood sugar tests or kidney ailments and its progressive treatment can be monitored in this way.
Some Common Cat Diagnostic Tests
CBC
CBC denotes complete blood count and this diagnostic test is frequently recommended for cats as it can give a great deal of information about your pet’s health. It allows the vet to know the level of red and white cells which helps your cat fight diseases and as well as about platelets. Irrespective of whether your cat is healthy or sick, this test will help the vet provide better help.
Viral Screen
This is another diagnostic test that is prescribed by the vet if your kitty is exposed to other cats, goes outdoors frequently or you have several cats in your house. The diseases that are diagnosed through this test include FeLV, FIV and FIP.
Urine Analysis
Urine analysis is performed to find out if your cat has any viral or bacterial infection. Since collecting fresh sample may be difficult, sterile urine is collected for the medical process.
This list is just a sample of general diagnosis tests for cats that can be performed to