Dental Work

Maisie is booked in to have her dental treatment on monday. I have to drop her off at 9am and they will ring when she`s ready to come home.
The vet said he will put her on a drip first as she is having kidney problems and she will be fasted from 8pm sunday night.

I`ve had her 4 days now and the vet said she is a teenager and she is very skinny, just 2 1/2kg. I don`t think he was going to suggest doing it but when her bloods came back he said her kidneys may recover if she has this done.

Anyone else had this experience with an older cat with kidney trouble?
Was it a success?

Also she loves her wet food but I`m worried about what she will be able to manage to eat after treatment, like when she gets home and when she`s feeling better. Think she`s having teeth taken out as well as cleaning.

What would be the best thing to feed her?

I know a woman who rescues nothing but senior cats and I've heard her talk about having dentals done on these cats many times. She has a vet who understands geriatric cats and does have special procedures that he uses on them. Sorry, but I don't know what those are.

My Stumpy just had 1/2 of his teeth removed about a month ago. He doesn't like wet food but managed to gobble down dry food with absolutely no problem at all. He ate immediately when we got him home after surgery and hasn't let up since then. The vet should give you instructions on what to feed and will probably recommend wet food for a while. With Stumpy, we were very pleased to find out that pulling his teeth didn't stop him from eating his normal diet.

We went through this with Lilly a few weeks ago as well. She too had about half of her teeth removed. Towards the end her tumor was so big that she couldn't manage dry food so we were giving her canned 3x a day. I think had she not had the tumor she would've still eaten dry. When we got her she was missing a good 6 teeth already and she always made do. I think you'll find your new little girl will bounce back quickly.

A friend of ours had a cat with no teeth. We cat sat her once for a week and she ate dry food no problem. The smaller the kibble the better I would guess.

I also had a kitty that had all four back molars out and she still ate and crunched the dry food.

My Leopold has just a couple of molars/premolars left...basically doen't have much more than his canines and front teeth now.

He did OK w/dry food, although it sometimes didn't agree with his tummy, maybe because he didn't chew it...not sure, but he does very well w/canned food. No more tummy trouble now.

Like Momofmany said, some cats w/few teeth do just fine with dry....just depends on the cat and the food, I guess.

I think most cats without teeth can still eat dry without a problem because they don't really chew it, most just bolt it down (at least mine do). That's a relief because Stan is a real dry foodie and he's probably going to have most of his teeth taken out at some point

It sounds as though Maisie's kidney problems aren't too bad - did the vet give you figures? When Jaffa had a dental last year pre-op bloods showed he had high values but they weren't abnormal, just high end of normal. He was ok to have the anaesthetic but he had an iv drip like Maisie's having and I think they use a special anaesthetic that's safer than the standard one. She will feel much better after she's had her teeth cleaned.

When Jaffa came home he was starving and ate his food as normal and never had any difficulty eating (he had 2 teeth out).

i have had dentals done on quite a few older cats, and there have never been any probs - but leaving them can cause health issues, and it can affect their kidneys, so it is the best thing all round. Having her on a drip is a very good idea, one of mine had that last year (although her op was completely different). Two of mine have ended up completely toothless and both managed dry food with no probs whatsoever. Good luck for it.

Thanks for your input everyone

It`s good to know her eating shouldn`t be affected too much. I was thinking everything was going to have to be mushed up for the rest of her life!
The vet didn`t give me the figures. I spoke to him on the phone and I wouldn`t have understood what they meant anyway
Hopefully this will really help her. I`m not sure if she has other problems yet. She has leaked some poo an the carpet twice now but I guess that could all be tied in with her teeth. Will mention it again tomorrow to vet.