“Just as preventive care for your pet is relatively inexpensive, treating dental disease can be significantly more costly. A comparison is if you take good care of your car with regular lube, oil and filter changes, and the cost is minimal compared to having to rebuild the engine or transmission.”
CREEKWOOD INFORMATION
TOPICS
- 25 Ways
- Allergies
- Arthritis
- Dental Health
- Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease
- Fleas
- Glaucoma
- Heartworms
- Longer Pet Life
- Microchips
- Obestiy
- Zoonotic Disease
- Spaying & Neutering
- Toxins
OUTSIDE LINKS
DENTAL HEALTH
Signs of oral and dental diseases in dogs and cats
- Bad breath
- Loose teeth or teeth that are discolored or covered in tartar
- Your pet shies away from you when you touch the mouth area
- Drooling or dropping food from the mouth
- Bleeding from the mouth
- Loss of appetite or loss of weight (this combination can result from diseases of many organs, and early veterinary examination is important)
Unfortunately, many times before dental care is provided for pets, dental disease is present. Just as preventive care for your pet is relatively inexpensive, treating dental disease can be significantly more costly. A comparison is if you take good care of your car with regular lube, oil and filter changes, and the cost is minimal compared to having to rebuild the engine or transmission. There is a wide variation in the degree of dental health in pets. Dental disease can be put into four categories: tartar, gingivitis, pyorrhea and periodontitis.
Tartar is the accumulation of plaque that has hardened on the teeth, usually starting at the gumline in conjunction with gingivitis.
Gingivitis is inflammation of the gums. The gums may be irritated, inflamed or infected. You can easily see this by the increase in the pinkness of your pet's gums, especially at the gumline. The gingiva may have receded, allowing tooth roots to be exposed. Another condition is when the gingiva may have become hyperplastic, a condition where too much tissue has developed in an area. Pyorrhea is very serious. It is pus in the mouth, usually between teeth and gums. This infection is usually causing periodontitis, which is loss of bone that holds the teeth in.
Pyorrhea and Periodontitis go hand in hand. These pets may have damage to their heart valves, liver, kidneys and lungs caused by the dental disease. Once a kidney cell is damaged, it will never recover, nor be replaced by the body. We must prevent further damage to the kidneys. These pets are at increased risk, and require special care. We must be more cautious with these pets. We have gone to great expense to insure your pet is well monitored under the safest anesthesia possible.
One or more reasons cause dental tartar, gingivitis and/or periodontitis. The first reason is feeding canned or soft foods. These foods give no benefits to the teeth and gums because they require little to no chewing. The second is hairstyles/grooming. Pets that have beards or long hair around their mouth seem to develop dental disease faster than well-trimmed breeds. The hair around the lips catches moisture and bacteria and constantly feed bacteria into the mouth. Lack of grooming, or lack of in-home dental care is a leading condition. The final reason is genetics. As with our teeth - some people get cavities or excessive tartar due to genetics - some animals have more dental problems than others due to genetics. Since we cannot change our genetics, dry food and hard biscuits and daily brushing, preferably with an electric toothbrush, are our recommendations. We have seen significant improvement in dental health with pets fed Hill’s Science Diet t/d (Tartar Control Diet) as treats.
Fractured (broken) teeth are another common abnormality seen. Chewing on hard objects can break teeth. Sometimes fractured teeth need to be extracted or referred to a veterinary dentist for repair.
Dental health is your choice. Let us help you keep your pet as healthy as possible.
A preanesthesia blood screen will be recommended.
Like you, our greatest concern while your pet is here is his/her well being. Before putting your pet under anesthesia, we will recommend preanesthesia lab analysis. Not all conditions are readily detected by a general physical examination. This includes some congenital (present at birth) problems. Additionally we keep teeth clean to help keep the pet as healthy as possible. Since dental disease can lead to kidney, liver, lung and/or heart disease, it is important to objectively evaluate your pets internal organ systems. By completing a preanesthesia lab panel, we will find out enough about your pets kidney and liver function, as well as the percentage of red cells to insure your pet’s ability to safely undergo anesthesia. Preanesthesia lab work can help insure your pet is in a low risk category for anesthesia. This information will help us help your pet through and after the procedure. This also gives us a baseline of what is normal for your pet. If your pet is ever sick, we can compare it to your pet’s actual normal values. If any significant abnormalities are detected we will contact you to discuss further diagnostics, if they are indicated
A preanesthetic injection will be given.
This injection helps sedate your pet and reduce stress.
An intravenous catheter will be placed and IV fluids started.
Just as your doctor would place an IV catheter before anesthesia, so will we. IV catheters allow further IV injections to be given without stress to your pet. Additionally, it is a further security while your pet is under anesthesia. IV fluids are administered to help maintain blood pressure to support organ health and function as well as prevent dehydration.
General anesthesia will be induced.
The heart and respiration will be monitored. We use anesthetic protocols designed to be as safe as possible specific for your pet. Our anesthetic protocol provides for pain control. Most pets wake up minutes after procedures are completed. We provide warmth during and after anesthesia, to prevent the body from cooling and keep your pet as comfortable as possible. With our protocol, our pets remain sedate and relaxed. Most pets are relatively ‘bouncy’ by the time they go home. Since sensitivities to anesthesia vary, some pets may continue to be more sedate than normal for 24 hours.
We will scale the tartar off the teeth.
We will ‘probe’ around each tooth to determine if there is any periodontal disease.
We will take dental X-rays if indicated.
Dental X-rays are indicated if there is any evidence of bone loss, periodontitis, fractured teeth, or after dental extractions. Dental X-rays are a good way to monitor dental health yearly, just as in human dentistry.
We will extract any tooth we feel is diseased or otherwise causing pain.
Extracting teeth requires additional time, instrumentation and skill. This service is again charged per the time it takes at the current surgery rate. We have the instrumentation to allow extractions in as little time as possible.
We will treat gum disease if indicated.
Most pets do not require this option. A gingivectomy is removal of excess gum tissue that may be a source of pain for your pet or be creating a pocket. These pockets provide a home for bacteria to hide, and lead to periodontal disease. If tissue looks questionable, we will recommend biopsy of these tissues. Most of these tissues are benign, but it could also be cancerous.
We will polish the teeth with a fluoride paste.
The polish is important to help delay the recurrence of plaque and tartar.
We will apply a final antibacterial rinse to the teeth.
Additional pain medication(s) will be administered if deemed appropriate.
Pain medication will be used and prescribed if teeth are extracted or a gingivectomy has been performed, but may be indicated in other circumstances.
An antibiotic may be prescribed.
Many factors will be considered as to whether your pet should be on oral antibiotics. Since many pets will have gingivitis or worse, these pets will be prescribed a systemic orally administered antibiotic.
We will make recommendations if we think further diagnostics or treatments are indicated for your pet for any reason.
DENTAL HYGIENE
Brushing your pet’s teeth everyday will increase the interval between when a dental cleaning will be needed. When a pet’s teeth are brushed weekly or monthly this will not be sufficient. Do not use human toothpaste, pet toothpaste is available.
A vaccine for dogs is available that aids in preventing periodontitis.
There are many other products that claim to help with dental health. Some of these will provide some help, but others are unhelpful or possibly break teeth.