Post Spay surgery questions....

My baby Bease is still doing well. I dont know if it is the anti-inflamatory or pain killers that is making her a lil sleepy. Also she seems very clingy which is weird for my lil miss independence. She hates the lil coney collar but I am going to leave it on for a couple more days. I had a couple questions and was hoping some of you who have previously experienced caring for a spayed female could help me out.
-How long for those of you who have female cats, how long did you leave the lil cone collars on for.
-Also the vet said that the reason a lot of vets dont like doing spays/neuters before 4 months is because the anestetic stops the growth of their organs? Is this true? Is there many different types of anestetic and the vet I took them to is using a kind that may really damage their organs?

Thanks guys for any info or suggestions.

The females usually spring back in 24-48 hours after surgery. They are groggy and you don't want them in a room where they can jump on anything. Just keep them quiet. The collar is only temporary so they don't pull out the stitches.

You will probably find the grogginess disappears after 24 hours. After that, a couple of days and she will be back to normal. Idin't have collars on my two, but elastic body bandages to keep the dressin in place and stop them scratching. This is Ellie after 24 hours:

I've never had E collars with any of my cats, but I've been lucky that they've left the stitches alone. I cannot answer your question about getting the cat spayed at such an age but it is perfectly normal for them to be groggy.

Thanks Jenny for the picture. I think that would have been a better idea than the collar thingy.

Hey! Just wanted to tell you to enjoy clingy Bease while you still can... Miss Independent, otherwise known as Baylee, was adorable after her spay - she used to crawl in my lap and fall asleep there. Sigh... it was great. She hasn't done that again since her spay...

Oh and I never had a collar for her... she never tried to go for the stitches.

I work in a vet's office and we never have sent an E-coller home with a kitty, they just don't usually bother the incision. As for the the anesthetic causing the organs to stop growing I have never heard of such a thing. An injectable anesthetic is used to induce the animals (knock the out long enough to get an endotracheal tube in place) the kidneys and liver filter this drug back out of the body in 24 or so hours. An inhalant anesthetic, which stays in the lungs (the safest anesthetic to use with animals that are compromised in any way) is used to maintain them while under anethesia. There are still alot of vets out there that are just set in their ways and don't like to spay or neuter before the 6 monthes, and others who will.

I had a female at before, what I did instead of the cone was used one of my husbands tube socks, it wasn't tight and she couldn't get at the stitches. Good Luck!!!!

Yep, the grogginess is due to the residual effects of the drug. Humans get pretty groggy too after surgery. The drugs simply haven't had time to flush out of the system and makes the cat drift in an out of sleep.

I think most people use Isoflurane for inhalant anesthetic, pretty safe stuff, and very hard to overdose on it. For injectables, there's a number of them, Ketamine/Xylazine cocktails are popular but not good for the cat, and Diazepam is pretty popular too and a little better for the cat (though not as potent). The reason why the use an injectable first rather than starting off with the gas is that animals get "excited" during induction, and you want the induciton phase to be as quick as possible, it's called "crash induction".

All of these anesthetics get metabolized in the liver and filtered out by the kidneys, and sooner or later find themselves in the litter box. They also make body temperatures drop (or at least in mice and rats), so maybe keeping the cat slightly warm while she's groggy might help.

Oops, oh yeah, I work in a research lab, in case you're wondering how I know all this. Mostly with mice and rats, but the occasional monkey comes in. My co-workers think I'm weird and tell people I talk to the mice and rats. The mice a real cute, they're nude!:

Originally Posted by Petnurse2265

I work in a vet's office and we never have sent an E-coller home with a kitty, they just don't usually bother the incision. As for the the anesthetic causing the organs to stop growing I have never heard of such a thing. An injectable anesthetic is used to induce the animals (knock the out long enough to get an endotracheal tube in place) the kidneys and liver filter this drug back out of the body in 24 or so hours. An inhalant anesthetic, which stays in the lungs (the safest anesthetic to use with animals that are compromised in any way) is used to maintain them while under anethesia. There are still alot of vets out there that are just set in their ways and don't like to spay or neuter before the 6 monthes, and others who will.

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PetNurse & Lemur6 Thanks for the info. Do you think I need to be concerned since he said that it would? Should I ask what type of anesthetic he used?

I wouldn't worry about it, what's done is done. Just keep her happy and comfortable while she heals.

I think that if your Bease is as headstrong as my mom's powder puff, then the collar should stay on until the stitches come out. Her cat pulled the stitch out and had to have it put back in, and would chew on the stitch anytime the "satelite dish" wasn't a part of her body! My mom just took a wet wash cloth and wiped her down daily since she couldnt do it herself.
She actually likes her new collar. She uses it to ram the bigger bully cats out of her way. And she has such a sassy way of walking that she looks like a bobble head on the car dash! Its adorable! She likes to wear the cone.
Maybe you can take it off after 2 days or so, but only if you watch her. Once it starts to heal, they itch, and she could pull them out before they are ready.
As for the organs...I dont know. I read that they will spay/neuter at 12 weeks or 2 pounds ( I think). I wouldnt worry much about it, its done.

My cat Lizzy was a little groggy the first day home and slept for most of it. She did not have one of the collars when she was released from the vet, and she did not chew or lick the incision.