Radiology
An x-ray of dog's abdomen; it shows a lot of gas (blue arrow) in the intestines
Radiographs (or x-rays) are one of the most commonly performed diagnostic tests in both human and veterinary medicine.
Although people commonly think of performing x-rays for the diagnosis of broken bones, there are many other conditions in veterinary medicine for which x-rays are used. For example our patients can eat such things as elastic bands, needle and thread, cassette tape, razor blades, bones just to name a few inedible objects. So x-rays enable us to get a better "picture" of what might be going on with your pet.
Sedation
It is often necessary to sedate a patient so that a more accurate and diagnostic x-ray can be acquired.
Sedation is used to allow the patient to relax and also to minimize any discomfort that they may be experiencing from a painful area of their body. Sedation is normally short acting and your informed consent will always be needed prior to any sedation being administered.
Interpretation
Although x-rays are essentially a black and white picture, different objects within the body project different shades of gray. At one extreme are metal objects and bones which show up on x-ray as a distinct white colour.
At the other extent of the spectrum is air which shows up as black. Therefore the lungs should always be black (since they are filled with air). In between white and black are the abdominal organs (kidney, liver, stomach, intestines, bladder to name just a few), the heart and the muscles.
How Many?
Finally, whenever we take an x-ray, we will almost always take a minimum of two different views of the area in question. This is done because we are imaging a three dimensional object (your pet) in only two dimensions.
We generally take at least two views that are perpendicular (at ninety degrees to one another) to each other. This allows us to make certain that we are not missing something in one view that we cannot see due to the patient's position in the other view.
Occasionally if we are looking for something less obvious we may need to take more than 2 views and if a patient is being monitored with multiple x-rays over a period of days, to months, we may only need to take one view since we are comparing this to a previous x-ray.