loose fang/unable to close mouth

Our kitty Henry is 8 years old and has had issues in the past with closing his mouth. He sometimes would have his mouth seem to stick open, and it would take him a few tries after eating or yawning to get it fully closed but he was always able to close it again. This morning he ate his wet food per usual and this evening a few minutes before I fed them their evening wet food, we noticed his mouth was stuck open and he couldn't seem to close it.

He hid from us after we tried to check him out (he is a very nervous cat, can't be around anyone who isn't us, was my husbands before we met....my husband raised him as a bottle fed kitten bc the mama cat who was also a cat of my husbands stopped feeding him, he was the runt of his litter. He took quite awhile to adjust to me....and when we moved 2 years ago he spent a week hiding between our mattress and the wall in our bedroom before he would even explore the house, so he is a very timid, scared cat.) We got him out of hiding and wrapped him in a towel to check his mouth and noticed a few traces of blood in his upper gums and one of his upper fangs was slightly moved to the inside of his lower fang~which is propping his mouth open because of how it has moved from it's normal spot. We took a qtip to lightly push the fang and it is loose, the upper part where it connects to his gum is very discolored and his gums are bright red surrounding his tooth.

I tried to gently tug at it to see if it was loose enough to come out but it didn't, and I didn't want to hurt him with hard tugging. Each time I touch the tooth he cries loudly. We ended up letting him go because he seemed terrified and we wanted him to calm down a little. He ended up sitting on the edge of our bed...shoving his paw in his mouth at his tooth like he was trying to get it out himself.

We are unsure as to whether or not we should take a trip to the emergency vet tonight, or call our regular vet in the AM to get him an appointment~we have never had a problem w/ same day appointments. He has eaten today so we know that he is okay in that area for right now but we are concerned about his pain level and what may be causing this tooth to be loose/coming out.

Does anyone have any ideas on anything we can do for him, or any advice? Also, should it be something we rush to get seen tonight or does it seem like it is not so much of an emergency? We hate seeing him in pain, although when we leave him alone he seems way less annoyed/terrified/in pain/bothered about the situation, so IDK if this is something cats just know to try and deal w/ on their own and we are making a bigger deal out of it than it is or not. We are also concerned about why he is losing the tooth, and if the loss of the tooth might mean some sort of sickness that we need checked out.

Any advice is appreciated

From your description the Cat can wait until morning, but is likely experiencing a tooth ache & if the cat wishes to be left alone, do so. Mostly likely cause of a loose painful tooth is a abcess of the tooth canal that has caused the root to loosen and push out the tooth.  Usually more than one tooth is involved and complete dental care is needed tommorrow. I would not wait longer as the infection can get into the blood causing serious illness. You vet should be able to get you in as an urgent appointment or refer you to a Veterinary Dentist.

Best of luck

Dr Smith Veterinarian
 

frankthetank said:

Our kitty Henry is 8 years old and has had issues in the past with closing his mouth. He sometimes would have his mouth seem to stick open, and it would take him a few tries after eating or yawning to get it fully closed but he was always able to close it again. This morning he ate his wet food per usual and this evening a few minutes before I fed them their evening wet food, we noticed his mouth was stuck open and he couldn't seem to close it.
He hid from us after we tried to check him out (he is a very nervous cat, can't be around anyone who isn't us, was my husbands before we met....my husband raised him as a bottle fed kitten bc the mama cat who was also a cat of my husbands stopped feeding him, he was the runt of his litter. He took quite awhile to adjust to me....and when we moved 2 years ago he spent a week hiding between our mattress and the wall in our bedroom before he would even explore the house, so he is a very timid, scared cat.) We got him out of hiding and wrapped him in a towel to check his mouth and noticed a few traces of blood in his upper gums and one of his upper fangs was slightly moved to the inside of his lower fang~which is propping his mouth open because of how it has moved from it's normal spot. We took a qtip to lightly push the fang and it is loose, the upper part where it connects to his gum is very discolored and his gums are bright red surrounding his tooth.
I tried to gently tug at it to see if it was loose enough to come out but it didn't, and I didn't want to hurt him with hard tugging. Each time I touch the tooth he cries loudly. We ended up letting him go because he seemed terrified and we wanted him to calm down a little. He ended up sitting on the edge of our bed...shoving his paw in his mouth at his tooth like he was trying to get it out himself.
We are unsure as to whether or not we should take a trip to the emergency vet tonight, or call our regular vet in the AM to get him an appointment~we have never had a problem w/ same day appointments. He has eaten today so we know that he is okay in that area for right now but we are concerned about his pain level and what may be causing this tooth to be loose/coming out.

Does anyone have any ideas on anything we can do for him, or any advice? Also, should it be something we rush to get seen tonight or does it seem like it is not so much of an emergency? We hate seeing him in pain, although when we leave him alone he seems way less annoyed/terrified/in pain/bothered about the situation, so IDK if this is something cats just know to try and deal w/ on their own and we are making a bigger deal out of it than it is or not. We are also concerned about why he is losing the tooth, and if the loss of the tooth might mean some sort of sickness that we need checked out.
Any advice is appreciated

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I would get Henry to a vet ASAP, because it sounds very very painful! It seems to me to be an abscess of the root, but you should definitely have it examined by a professional as soon as possible. I hope that your kitty feels better soon and I wish him a speedy recovery.

We have a 515 appt tonight to check it out, the only bad news is they only do extractions in the AM. They believe, without seeing it, that it will need out so we are having him seen tonight and most likely my husband will have to leave work tomorrow morning to drop him off for his extraction and pick him up later in the day, bc they said he will need anesthesia for it.

Well the vet appt went well. Expensive but well. We set an appt for Friday to have his tooth pulled. However they also noticed a slight heart murmer so we had to do xrays and have them sent out for a consult to make sure his heart is okay enough to go under anesthesia, and those results will come in tomorrow. They gave him an antibiotic injection that stays in his system 14 days so it should clear up any infection around the tooth and we got a contained of little pre measured vials of pain medicine for him until he can have his tooth removed Friday.

I was a little surprised at the price.... We had a cat with kidney failure who spent 3 days in the emergency vet (2 yrs ago) and paid approx 1300 for the entire Friday-Monday of care, IV fluids, testing etc. The estimate we got for the xrays, sending them out to be read, pain meds, antibiotics, tooth extraction and all that goes along w/ it is 1300! I was surprised a little because I wasn't expecting it to be so expensive but I guess I should have been, and we are feeling lucky that we have a savings account and are able to have this done without it causing us too much financial strain.
 

Throughout the day his tooth has grown more loose and was actually turning sideways in his mouth. He wasn't eating and we were concerned so we bought tuna and he worked at lapping up some of the water and I was able to kinda squirt some tuna water in his mouth slowly and he licked it from his mouth so he got a little nutrition from it. Well an hour ago we gave him his last dose of pain meds before his appt tomorrow and he was lapping at some water and we heard a clank...his tooth came out.

He has been trying for two days, shoving his paw in his mouth like he is trying to get it out, so I guess it finally worked. So now I have to call at 7 when they first start taking drop offs, to tell them about the tooth coming out so they can change it from an extraction to a teeth cleaning/check if the gums and other teeth are okay. We saved the tooth because idk if they will need it or not.

Well, if nothing else, I hope it gave him some relief. *nods*

If it were me, I'd probably end up saving it as a reminder of him. :nod:

Well we ended up not getting the dental cleaning done. They sent out the xrays of his heart to be checked and it showed his heart isn't enlarged at all which is good, they did an ekg (i believe thats what is was) and said things looked good BUT they did a blood test first and although his kidneys look good, his liver had elevated levels on one of the two numbers they check. She explained it but it was way earlier today so pardon my forgetfullness. Anyway, they needed to do a second test and once they did that, his levels were still abnormal, so now we have to send those results out and wait for a reading from a lab that can give us a more specific number to see where it's at.

Because of the heart murmur and liver problems, they were not comfortable putting him under anesthesia today, and because the tooth fell out and he was eating again/in good spirits again, they felt comfortable putting off the dental cleaning/check of his teeth.

He was prescribed a dewormer bc his white blood cell count was elevated and they said that a parasite of some sort can cause his liver to function abnormally, so we have medicine to give him. They also prescribed a liver medicine that he needs to take for 1 month. After 1 month is up, providing he has no more teeth issues causing him to not eat, we take him back for another blood test to check his liver and at that point if things are looking good, they will be able to do his dental work and make sure the tooth that fell out is completely gone (no root left inside), nothing abnormal w/ the lungs, nothing wrong w/ surrounding teeth etc.

You can help by brushing his teeth.Pet store have little tooth brushes and cat tooth paste.They try to "eat" the paste off brush.Becomes a treat for them.3 out our 4 love it! Baby Bob[Desert bobtail lynx],doesn't care for it to much,but he'll learn.

'

See if he will eat a raw chicken wing.  It can be messy if he decides he needs to kill it first, but they really keep a cat's teeth clean.  It might even improve the situation a bit, but I doubt it will get rid of hard tartar.  *if* he will then a couple a week should greatly help his future dental health. 

^That.
You could also even do just regular pieces of meat to start him off on and then work him up. Either way it'll be really good for him. :nod: