Dental for Old Cat Today

Poor little Itty Bitty Kitty (+18 years old) goes in for a dental today and will likely have six teeth out, at least.  Blood work says her liver and kidney values are good for the anaesthetic.  But she's so hungry now.  It's hard to feed the other critters and ourselves and not let her have anything.  Bitty is hyperthyroid and we do have to bump up her ear gel a bit.  Hope once the gums heal up and the increase in meds kicks in she will gain some needed weight.  She's only 5.6 pounds.  If you can spare some good wishes for Bitty, that everything goes smoothly, she recovers well and quickly and is back to harassing Andy -man-cat soon it would be appreciated.  

One of my cats just had a dental done last Friday. She's only 6 so not too old. Not getting fed the morning of the dental drives makes many cats cranky but surprisingly my cat was just fine. The dental vet removed three bad teeth and cleaned up the rest. My cat is doing fine post-dental. She's taking burprenex twice a day and has her teeth rinsed with a dental rinse once a day pet the vet. She didn't want to eat or do anythng when she got home from the dental but that's not uncommon. She was back to a more normal routine the next day.

Hope your cat does fine for her dental

Good vibes for Bitty! It's always a worry when they have to go in for surgery, but more so as they get older. Let us know how she got on.

Bitty did fine.  Only four teeth out, all on the top.  I go in to pick her up in about three hours, they want to observe as she comes completely out of anaesthesia.  Then the fun for me begins, getting anitbiotic and pain meds into her for a couple of days.  Or a week I guess for the antibiotic.  I have chicken broth I just made for her and some bits of home cooked chicken to mush up into it.  I cannot find all meat baby food anywhere, my old standby for sick cats.

that's great!
Is she difficult to pill usually?

pushylady said:

that's great!
Is she difficult to pill usually?

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Very.  But this is liquid so I just have to squirt it in.  And the pain med is liquid too and it just has to touch her gums.  She's home, she's not very happy, she's ravenous.  She's had two small batches of cut up into teeny, tiny bits turkey in chicken broth that I made today.    

Great news that Bitty's dental went so well.  After she's taken the edge off her hunger, be prepared for her to display some residual behavior from the meds she's received at the vet.  In other words, if she's like Chula, she'll be stoned out of her mind.  Chula was happy, just goofy and full of high spirits.  The next day she was a bit more subdued but within a day or two after that she was completely back to normal.  Bitty is older so her recovery might take longer but hopefully the worst is over.  

Buprenex can cause constipation in some cats so be on the look out for that. My cat had litter box issues this morning I'm giving her Miralax to help with the constipation. Ask your vet about using Miralax or the generic equivalent if your cat has constipation.

Glad your cat did well and is now home

Thanks for all the good wishes and helpful advice.  Bitty is doing REALLy well.  She came out of the anaesthetic so well we let her out of the room we contained her in last night.  She could handle stairs just fine, her balance and co-ordination are remarkable.  The only problem I saw was she forgot she no longer has the strength to jump up on our bed but tried anyway.  She forgot to use the ramps we provide but by bedtime she had figured that out and was steady on the ramps.

I will watch out for bathroom issues.  She's fine so far but we did have constipation problems some months ago.  Maybe I will mix up some SEB into the chicken broth just in case.  Bitty is probably going to get that whole six cups of broth I made just for herself, that's fine.  

Guess how hard it is to get a cat who is now wise to the med protocol out from under a queen size bed?

Back to the Vet yesterday for the same symptoms - drooling, shaking her head as if something in her mouth hurts, eating only liquid, losing weight, general evidence of not feeling well.  Bitty recovered from the dental nearly four weeks ago very nicely but now this.  Vet could not see anything stuck in her mouth, no obviously bad teeth, no temperature, no obvious reason.  He gave her an injection of broad spectrum antibiotic that's good for 7 days, and injection of antiflammatory and a mouth dose of pain killer.  I am to give her more pain killer over the weekend and if she does not improve he'll have to sedate her again to take a better look.  Bitty has no teeth, except the tiny front ones, left on her top jaw and when I asked he said he did find a small red spot on her top jaw were it looks like maybe a bottom tooth is now hitting but he doesn't think that could cause all this trouble.  By the time we got home from the Vet yesterday, about a half hour drive, Bitty was feeling much better, ate, drank,was more perky, moving around and much, much better.  Got to go get the painkiller for this morning into her now.  Poor little old girl.