High blood
pressure is a serious problem, Blood pressure measures how hard
your heart
is working to make your blood move throughout your body. To keep the
body
working, blood must move throughout the body. Every part of the body
needs
blood to bring it oxygen. Whenever the heart is full of blood, it
squeezes
together hard, and blood is forced into blood vessels called arteries.
Blood
pressure measures how hard your heart is working to make your blood
move
throughout your body. I
t is hard to measure blood
pressure
in dogs and cats because of the variances in size, anatomy and
willingness
to sit still and allow the process to take place. There are three
methods
for obtaining reasonably accurate blood pressure measurement. The
oldest
and most accurate is placement of a catheter directly into the artery
and
direct measurement of the pressure using a manometer. Most vets are not
really
anxious to place arterial catheters in patients for routine monitoring
of
blood pressure. Two methods of "indirect" blood pressure measurement
are
also used. One uses a Doppler system and the other an oscillometric
system. The oscillometric system is probably more accurate but doesn't
work well for
pets weighing less than fifteen pounds making it impractical for use in
most
cats and many small dogs. It measures both systolic and diastolic pressure. The Doppler system only
measures systolic pressure. It can be used in any size patient but is
not considered to be as accurate and requires a trained operator. The
definition of hypertension varies from reference to reference. Dr.
Morgan's "Handbook of Small Animal Practice" lists the range for normal
arterial blood pressure as 130 to 180 for systolic pressure and 60 to
100 for diastolic pressure and makes no distinction between dogs and
cats. I have seen references that suggest that anything over
120 may be hypertension in the cat and that the high end of normal
systolic pressure in the dog may be as high as 210. Blood pressure is
known to vary among breeds of dogs and that may explain some of the
reported differences.
source http://www.vetinfo4dogs.com
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BLOOD
PRESSURE MEASUREMENT IN DOGS AND CATS
This information is provided by Provet for
educational purposes only.
You should seek the advice of your veterinarian if your pet is ill as
only he or she can correctly advise on the diagnosis and recommend the
treatment that is most appropriate for your pet.
Description
If you go to the doctors for a medical examination you will almost
certainly have your blood pressure measured, usually using a cuff which
is placed around your arm and a stethoscope. This is because high blood
pressure is a relatively common finding which is present in a variety
of diseases. If you have high blood pressure (called hypertension) you
may be put on to drugs which reduce it, and you will almost certainly
be given a strict diet to follow. If you are overweight you will be
told to reduce your body weight by reducing calorie intake, you will be
advised to reduce salt intake and also reduce fat intake.
Cats and dogs rarely develop primary (essential) hypertension - but
they do develop high blood pressure in association with other diseases
such as renal failure. Until recently veterinarians were not able to
measure blood pressure accurately because the equipment available for
human use was unsuitable for use in animals....but now special
equipment is available and the techniques have been authenticated , so
don't be surprised if the measurement of blood pressure becomes part of
the routine examination of your pet - especially as it gets older and
is likely to be developing age-related diseases such as renal failure.
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This
picture shows a dog having it's blood pressure taken. It is used with
the permission of Hill's Pet Nutrition Ltd.
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reprinted with kind permission from Mike Davies:
Provet Limited
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