What is Infectious Disease Screening?

What is infectious disease screening  — You Ask ?

Infectious disease screening is a component of preventive care. It consists of Performing one or more diagnostic tests that are specific for an individual disease or condition that will give you and your veterinarian a high level of confidence that your dog does or does not have that specific condition.

Wow… That was  a mouthful, I just had to do it… Sorry!

An example will help. Take heartworms. Your Fido can “catch it” from a simple mosquito bite. There is a specific simple blood test that will screen very accurately (yes or no) if your dog (or cat) is carrying this  life threatening heartworm infection. If he contracts heartworms, and it progresses, his quality of life will be terrible. And his life span will be significantly shortened. You will not be happy, Fido will not be happy, your veterinarian will not be happy!  A truly lose-lose-lose situation.

This is a condition you don’t want.

It is a perfect illustration of the nature, and purpose, and effectiveness of preventive care for your dog.

Preventive care identifies exposure to, risk for, and early detection of illness, disease and conditions that may be developing insidiously under the surface unknown to either you, your dog, or your veterinarian, without some detective work.

Think of preventive care as hiring Sherlock Holmes to look into your pet’s past and present lifestyle and determining whether he has encountered any evil that might give him problems in the future.

The evil can be hiding or working in several different corners.  These areas or risk factors have been there all along.  So long in fact that they are now invisible and no one pays any attention to them until it’s too late and a real clinical problem develops.

You can turn this into win-win- win situation simply by being proactive and developing a plan with your veterinarian. This plan will be focused on physical examination and screening tests appropriate to your dog’s age, diet, environment etc.

“Prevent what you can,

Treat what you can, as

Early as you can,

So that you your dog will:

live longer,

healthier, and you will be

WORRY-FREE!”

— Dr. B…