Teeth woes

Last night I noticed my flatmate's cat has some teeth/gum problems. It's the tiny front teeth on the right side of her lower mouth; the teeth are out of alignment and the gum is red and swollen. The tooth at the front has a slight brown discolouration around the bottom. 

My flatmate suspects it might be an baby tooth that hasn't come out yet (the cat is about 9-10 months now). I would say that's possible - the tooth looks smaller than its neighbours - but I also think it's infected due to the discolouration and the swelling and redness of the surrounding gum. The tooth is loose, and the cat doesn't like it to be touched. 

The cat is eating fine and still tries to play-bite us a lot, so it can't be that painful. But I know it's hard to tell when cats are in pain sometimes. It certainly looks painful. 

Ideally she should go to a vet but my flatmate has had a lot of money problems this year, and her 'something went really wrong' fund is very low. Getting this treated could very well wipe that out. So she wants to leave it for a few days and be very certain it's necessary to take her to the vet over. 

I'm just concerned and feeling kind of helpless, so I'm wondering if any of you good people can offer some words of advice, or at least help me gauge how serious this is. I know 'go to the vet' would be number one - believe me, I'm working on it - but if there's anything else that can be done please tell me. 

Here's a picture - the problem tooth is the one almost in the centre. 

At her current age, I would think ALL her adult teeth should already be in, and by the looks of this picture, not only does that brownish tooth have an issue, but there is another one that is completely missing, isn't there?   What about her upper teeth...how do they look? 

Does she try to chew on things?  Cardboard boxes, things like that?  (with her front teeth I mean?  Some cats with dental issues are notorious chewers, that's how their owners often figure out there's a problem, because they become almost destructive by chewing on things. 

Sorry to say, my only advice is to have her seen, unless you have a Vet who might take a look at the picture and offer some thoughts.  If either of you have a good relationship with your Vet, you might be able to talk them into that

Yes, all her adult teeth are in. The flatmate thinks it's a left over baby tooth that's having problems because it's stayed in much longer than it should have. 

And yeah, her teeth are kind of messed up in that spot - they're all out of alignment and there's a lot of unoccupied gum space. 

She does chew on cardboard boxes and she tries to bite us a lot when we pat her, but she's very playful and the biting/chewing isn't excessive or desctructive so it's not the kind of thing that'd raise any flags. 

I don't know about any of her other teeth. She's very wriggly and playful and hates being restrained, and she doesn't like us touching her mouth (probably because her teeth hurt!) so it's almost impossible to get a decent look at her teeth. 

It's really stressing me out. I don't think my flatmate thinks it's as serious as I do. Plus she really doesn't want to take the cat to a vet if it can be helped because she's had a lot of money problems this year and her "stuff's gone wrong fund" is very small. I don't know what the options are really. Thank you for your help though. 

I made her take the kitty in to the vet today, and it's gingivitis. She needs at least 2 teeth pulled and it's going to cost $500+ to fix and my flatmate is feeling down about it. But now at least she knows it's serious, because I really feel like she wasn't taking it seriously before. Uh, any advice on gingivitis? 

One of my cat's teeth are weird. The vet said they're like shark teeth on one side because of the alignment. Now at 12 years old he has chronic gum inflammation and we're having to consider an extraction. I'm really quite annoyed as I didn't know how bad it was and would've had it removed years ago rather than waiting until he's a senior. Our other cat has had two extractions, and still has a bit of gingivitis. We brush his teeth every other day. He's been better off since his bad teeth were removed.
So as far as advice for your flatmate, I would encourage her that it's much better to deal with it now when the kitty is still young and otherwise healthy. He'll enjoy a better quality of life without a painful mouth, and it could lead to worse by not nipping it in the bud now. $500 is a lot of money, but the thing is, it will always be expensive and there never seems to be a good time for it.

And since she's so young and already has gingivitis, I would suggest that she begins brushing her teeth as soon as possible to prevent further issues.  Is she going to get the dental work done?  I don't think the current gingivitis can be reversed, but on a go forward basis, brushing may keep it from returning. 

Post #3 of this thread have 2 different videos of brushing cat's teeth.  One is a tutoring video, then the other is one of our member's video on how she now does it, both excellent!  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/304129/brush-cats-teeth-c-e-t-option