Vet said 5 year old cat needed 12 teeth removed

I took my cat to the vet because she is gagging, tongue drooping out of her mouth, coughing, etc.  Well, I had to drop her off and when I went to get her later they had removed 12 teeth.  Then they tried to tell me she was 10-13 years old, well lo and behold I know when she was born.  She is only 5 years old.  I think either something more serious is wrong with her or they just took me and my poor cat for a ride.  Any input and this is not normal is it?  12 teeth in a cat that young.

Did the vet mention anything about stomatitis?  I am wondering if that is what is going on.  That would make a cats mouth appear to be much older than their actual age.

Are you able to look at her teeth yourself? Do you see anything along the gumline or does it seem discoloured? I agree, that is a lot to see in a young cat, but dental health can also be genetic. It could just be an unfortunate part of her genes, but I would suggest a second opinion before jumping into any drastic procedures.

They already took the teeth!  Did not even call me and tell me or anything.  I am really wondering about them period. 

And feline leukemia would as well (make the teeth rot).  And they told me some were either just gone or worn down, come on in a 5 year old cat???  And they didn't do any further testing of any sort from what I can read on the extremely high bill.  I don't want them touching my cat again though so I need to find another vet to do the test.

They also have a vet tech. that I believe or I know does some of the surgeries.  Is this legal?  I never thought they would do anything like that without my consent.

OH wow! Sorry, I didn't even read the tense in your post. I would want to ask for more information -- like what the vet saw, what made it appear the teeth needed to be extracted. If they did it and you just picked her up without giving them the OK makes it sound like it would have been an emergency. If they didn't provide the full details, I would call or visit and probe for more. Have you been to this vet before, or have they seen your cat before?

I tend to take it as a grain of salt, but I like checking vets offices on vetratingz to see what the general consensus is. You'll have to weed through the generic "this vet is great" vs "this vet is just gouging", but if they're dominantly leaning towards "this vet took my money and did X Y Z without my authorization", then there's something very wrong.

If you can find a vet and get a second opinion on why the teeth may have had to be removed, in detail, that'd be the best route. Poor girl! I hope she has a swift recovery.

I just find that really bad business, they could have called me and explained things to me and I don't even know if what they told me is true now.  And the vet tech doing surgeries has really stumped me too.  Thanks for your input.  I appreciate all I can get in this regard.

I think vet techs can do some diagnostics and some minor procedures like ones that don't require anesthetizing, but when it comes to procedures like surgery and actual diagnosing, that's left to a full on vet to do. This strikes me as a really off practice - did the receptionist or the vet or tech themselves supply this information? I would hope maybe a receptionist relayed the information incorrectly to you.

I have never had a vet run up a large bill without giving me an estimate and getting my okay.   When one of my kitties had a dental she gave me an estimate with 2 or 3 extractions.  Once she got started and took x-rays she saw that she needed 5 extractions.  The vet tech called me to get my okay for the 2 additional extractions.  I don't know anything about the vets abilities as a vet but this sounds like shady business practices.

No, I know what goes on there personally because my son dated the vet's daughter and she has even told me one of the vet techs (her sister) performs some surgeries, like oral surgery.  The whole place appears to be screwed up on some level, the more I think about it as they have my animals aged all wrong and one as deceased who was just there 2 weeks ago.  I don't know what to think or what to do, but I think my responsibility is to do something in case this happens a lot.  People should know about it.  And  now her teeth or a lot of them are gone and if there is something else wrong I have to find another vet, but I honestly think this was all unethical and very unprofessional.

I need to take some action here of some sort.  They should have called me for sure.

It does sound strange to have a major procedure like dental extraction without having the cat "Fast" from the night before.  This would be to avoid food aspirating into the lungs while under anesthetic.

But if it was an emergency, like pinkdagger mentioned....then I would not know.

  I have never heard of teeth being an emergency....unless accident involved.

Where do you live? You may need to look up the procedure to follow when reporting a veterinary practice (I certainly don't have a clue, even locally as I've fortunately not had to). When you take your cat to another vet, be sure to have documentation of this visit to conclude whether or not what this vet did was necessary or appropriate. I'm sure a new vet wouldn't mind answering some general questions about their practice, and whether or not the things you know this vet does is the norm (or, you know.. legal). You don't have to be slandering about it, but it's a great way to gather information for, for all the new vet would think is general knowledge.

I live in Iowa and I did write the Veterinary Board for Iowa.  I just asked them if there was someone I could speak with about the care my cat received from a vet.  Nothing more and I know better than to slander him.  But I do need to know why I wasn't notified about the teeth.

Good to hear. I hope you get a prompt response on how to proceed further and something can be done regarding this practice.

@Dawn Harvey    Here is the site that pinkdagger mentioned in looking for vets or their ratings online....but you have to read it with a grain of salt. ....http://www.vetratingz.com/searchResults.jsp?thingname=&city=&state=IA&zip=&radius=10

When you find a new vet they can get all the records transferred from the old one. 

Also asking for photo copies of bloodwork, is always useful, even if you don't know how to read them....sometimes just looking online helps.

I hope your next vet is good and also skilled at explaining procedures.

I gave my kitty's vet clinic a rating on that site.  I just went and looked at it and mine is still the only rating for them.  I was completely honest in giving them a good rating but it does depend on who is writing the review.  Some people rate purely on costs and nothing else.  Others are very grateful about them making a sick pet well when actually it was something very straightforward and they don't have much experience with vets.  I tend to be very hard to please when it comes to vets so a good rating from myself and people like me would mean something.  You can't know who is giving the ratings though.

I am so sorry this has happened to you and your kitty. I understand why you are upset- I would be livid. Did you sign an authorization form? I ask because years ago, we took our dog in for neutering and when we picked him up later that day, he had undergone an exploratory surgery for a missing testicle without our knowledge. The bill was close to $1800 and he had over 100 stitches, all the way up to his sternum. They never found the testicle, he was born with only one.

The standard authorization form we signed had three levels. The first, which is the one we checked, gave them permission to perform any procedure necessary to ensure the health of our dog (I cannot remember the exact wording, these descriptions are as close as I can remember them). The second level said to call us before performing any procedure we had not discussed. The third said to only do what we had discussed.

It was a form that was easy to skim over and automatically sign. Checking the first box seemed logical, as we were not anticipating any issues, and we didn't stop to really think about what it meant. I incorrectly assumed it meant we were authorizing them to take emergency action should something go wrong with the anesthesia. It was only a neuter. We wanted the best care for our dog and never imagined in a million years that they would perform a major, expensive surgery without calling us first. By checking that box, we gave them permission to do just that.

It was a hard lesson learned and I was very, very angry. I was thinking maybe something similar could have happened in your case? It sucks, but it is still preferable to a vet doing unauthorized surgeries at will. That is a very disturbing, unsettling thought. Or maybe it is a case of sloppy paperwork by employees, leading to a miscommunication about what procedures were to be performed on your cat- which is absolutely unacceptable. I am upset that this happened to you and am trying to think of how it could have possibly happened. I hope you get answers soon.

And I hope your kitty is recovering well from his surgery.

This vet has highly incompetent people working for him and now that you mention it I did sign a form, BUT I would still think that with 12 teeth they would have called me first.  That is a whole lot of teeth for a five year old cat.  I am livid for sure, but I am also very concerned something else is wrong with her.  Then they had the audacity to change her age to 13 years old!  Just because the vet tech said her teeth looked like a much older cat.  I had to sit and argue with an idiot about how old my own cat was.  I am livid on many levels.  I know the vet, he is married to my step-niece so he knows me well enough to know I would want to be consulted about taking out so many teeth.   I have found some very poor reviews on him too.  I thought when I took her there that they would be doing a check-up because of her symptoms,  I had no idea they would just do this without my knowledge.  I do know I will never go there again.