My vet won't give me my dog's kidney lab results. What are my rights?

These are elevated kidney parameters and these may point to kidney disease. Lab results alone will not diagnose a disease, so I would have to have the result of a hands-on clinical exam as well as mesical history of your animal as well in order to correctly interpret the results.

It's common for kidney values to improve with aggressive treatment (such as hospitalization for IV fluids). Sometimes they don't improve even with treatment, which would be a bad sign, or sometimes they improve while hospitalized, but don't stay improved. So, I can't get much idea about her prognosis from what they've told you so far. If they are happy with her progress, they will likely discharge her after 1-3 days and then have you come back to have her kidney values checked after a week, which will give you much more information. It's possible they are being vague because they just don't know yet -- it's impossible to know how she'll do out of the hospital. I'd recommend asking them what the next steps are, when she can go home, what treatments she'll need at home, and what the follow up testing will look like. You can also directly ask about prognosis. Wishing you the best of luck

This is best to discuss during a one-on-one consultation; however, the blood work results reveal that your pet has a high white blood cell count (indicates infection or inflammation), mild anemia (low red blood cells), a UTI with a low specific gravity (concentrating ability of the kidneys which should be rechecked once UTI resolved, as well as protein in the urine which should be rechecked after resolution of UTI. as well as high BUN, CREA, which suggests kidney damage or kidney failure. Because of the concurrent UTI, it is best to resolve the UTI with anti-biotics, perhaps consider a SDMA test (specific kidney disease test) to confirm suspected kidney disease/insufficiency, and then rechk Urinalysis in 2 weeks. I am not sure why your pet is on Lasix, unless there is also underlying heart diseasee, which could have caused the erroneous reading of low specific gravity on the test. If there is more to discuss, then pleasea don't hesitate to request a private consultation for this, because this is a complicated case that needs to be on a more personal level in order to get full clarity on the recommendations above. Best wishes and take care.

This does seem odd. If you were told that she would have a complete blood panel and two vials of blood were taken, then there should be some missing results. The person who called may have been mistaken... I would call back and ask to speak with the veterinarian. The person who calls is sometimes not the vet and may not fully understand the case. Also, it should always be the doctor that interprets blood results. Sometimes the lab either forgets to send the results, or somehow doesn't run the tests. I would look at your receipt and see what you had been charged for. If you were charged for a CBC and Biochemistry (which is often the meaning of a complete blood panel), then they owe this to you and need to remedy the situation by either calling the lab and finding the results, or drawing blood again (at no fee). I hope that helps and everything turns-out OK with Laska.

Hi there! After looking at the lab results, I see that all of these are extremely minor changes - they usually don't mean anything at all, in a dog that's clinically healthy and acting normal. The one possible exception would be the elevated BUN, as this can sometimes be a sign of early kidney disease - but it can also be caused by mild dehydration (common in anxious dogs who are panting at the vet's office!), a high-protein diet, or other things that don't have any clinical significance. If you wanted to be sure that his kidneys are fine, your veterinarian could do a urinalysis to make sure that his urine is appropriately concentrated and doesn't contain protein or any other abnormalities. The other values will often be slightly variable from one patient to another, and should not be any cause for concern.

Hi, Oscar needs to be hospitalized and treated with IV fluids, antibiotics, and gastrointestinal protectants. Additionally, he should be tested for infectious diseases such as leptospirosis and ultrasounded to determine if he has any problems in his liver or kidneys.

I'm sorry to hear that Caramel is not feeling well. The paperwork showing "female" instead of male is a typo somewhere. Nothing that was run in those tests determine's the dog's sex, so I suspect that was entered wrong at the lab. His kidney values are a bit high, but they aren't crazy high. If a urinalysis was not performed, talk to your vet about running a urinalysis as well, as this will help determine whether those values being high may be in part due to whether or not he is dehydrated (typically the "USG" or "urine specific gravity" is what we are looking for to help interpret this). You may also want to talk to your vet about an abdominal ultrasound (sonogram of the belly); having images of the kidneys and bladder as well as the rest of the abdominal organs (liver, pancreas, GI tract, spleen, adrenal glands) can be helpful in terms of what the most likely cause of his clinical signs are. Another consideration since he is "hardly able to get up" would be a painful condition that's making him not want to move; ask your vet if he seems painful anywhere. To summarize, here is what I recommend you do. Take him to your vet and ask about a urinalysis. Ask your vet if he seems painful anywhere (belly, back, neck, joints). Ask if your vet thinks he needs IV fluids. Ask about an abdominal ultrasound. Best of luck with him, I hope he feels better soon. Thanks for asking Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!