Gingivitis

Any advise would be great. My vet told me that my cat Buddy has gingivitis, and he gave me antibiotics. He told be that with most cats it is a recurring problem, and the solution is to pull out all of his teeth.about 10 or 12 of them. That seems very cruel. and the cost would be $800. What are the other alternatives?????

Do you know if the vet used the term "stomatitis?" That's the disease where tooth extraction is the last resort treatment. For plain old gingivitis, antibiotics to get it under control and then tooth brushing combined with dental cleaners and/or dental chews might be enough to keep it from recurring. For those whose cats haven't reached this stage, yet, daily tooth brushing and periodic professional tooth cleanings will help avoid this expensive problem.

dental chews , brushing if you can or get the rx rince stuff and a dental diet..

We currently have a cat that had been a feral - she had gingivitus also - Human Society had trapped her and she needed 16 teeth pulled, we started out as "fosters" to give her the antibiotics, soft food, etc. after - but decided to keep her as we didn't think they could place her on a farm, etc. and find someone to feed wet food. She is doing just fine - she eats mostly wet, but I also have dry out, which is what she was mostly fed as part of the feral colony - she seems to enjoy it still, and I assume swallows it, but from research, this is okay - just have to make sure dry is small enough.

The vet only just diagnosed him with gingivitis, He gave me Clavamox to treat it. He is only 5 months old, with no history. He is already talking to me like pulling his teeth is the only option if he gets it again. I can't afford $800, but it is not the money, It just seems cruel, and I would like to exhaust all possibilities first. Its like if someone told me to pull out all the teeth on my child, NO Way!!!! The vet just told me to give him the medication, and if he gets it again that we should discuss pulling out 10 or 12 teeth

It very well may come down to making the decision to treat the gingivitis aggressively now by extracting the teeth or leaving them in and treating the resulting terminal kidney disease in the near future. Most vets would not suggest a full-mouth extraction unless it was indicated. Most would opt to attempt more frequent gingival scraping and cleanings first. However, at only 5 months old, your kitty is young, very young to have this happening. That is probably why your vet is suggesting the extractions be done now. Leaving the teeth in can cause the infections to go systemic and that just absolutely kills the kidneys in cats. It may have been the best suggestion for your vet to offer to increase the chances your kitty will live a long, healthy life, even if it seems harsh, cruel or excessive to you.

Best of luck,

~gf~

This is just a thought...we recently took one of our kitties, Trixie, to the vet for her annual exam. She is about 4 years old, and she's a rescue kitty that we've had for just under a year so we don't know much about her "previous" life with her old owners. Anyway, when the vet looked at her teeth he said she had pretty bad gingivitis, and at 4 years old she was too young to have it at this stage. He suggested running a test for bartonella, which is a blood infection/parasite that is transmitted through flea and tick bites; he said that usually if they see gingivitis and/or stomatitis in a cat this young, they have bartonella (there also seems to be a connection between bartonella and pancreatitis). Sure enough she tested positive and is now on a 28 day treatment course with Zithromax.

So, since your kitten is much, much younger than our Trixie and is already showing signs of gingivitis, perhaps you should request that your vet run a bartonella test.

~Amy