Tooth Extraction - what's the recovery like?

I have a friend who's cat is facing a partial or possibly total tooth extraction for severe gingivitus and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with what this is like for the cat, particularly with respect to recovery time, difficulties later, etc. Thanks.

My Molly had a few tooth extractions, the last one being 4 teeth. If I remember correctly, I had to feed her only wet food for a few days. She was much happier after the extractions. She ate much more food and was happier at meal times.

My abyssinians seem to have a time of it with gingivitis. Everytime they had to go for tooth extractions, except for one time they recovered very quickly. The one time that turned into a disaster was when I took Tommy(abby) in for tooth extraction and he died from an overdose of ketamine . I later found out that abby cats were very sensitive to that drug. I now always have the vet give my cats ISO when they need general anesthetic......

The recovery is generally pretty easy. Feed soft wet food only for the first few days. Otherwise, it's really straightforward. Cats with bad teeth are often in so much pain to begin with that postoperative pain is nothing by comparison.

One warning: be careful with the pain medication. You do not want a dose that is so high that the cat has no pain at all, because it will cause him to do things he shouldn't be doing with a freshly cut mouth. When my cat had an extraction, he ended up in the ER the next evening with a golf ball sized swelling in his cheek. He was feeling sooooo good to have the bad tooth gone and a ton of narcotic painkillers in his system that he was head butting everything in sight! And of course, head butting around the incision caused the major swelling. My poor little doofus!

After Twitch's total tooth extraction, she didn't want to eat or drink for the first day at all. She got only canned food for the next two weeks to make sure her mouth healed well. She drooled quite a bit the first day or two & looked pretty rough. After two days she was back to her normal self. She is much happier than I have ever seen her now that she has no teeth. She doesn't like canned food much, but that is because while her teeth were bad she ate mostly canned food. She loves her dry food. I am careful on the shape of the food I buy, but she usually doesn't have any touble with it. She is no different than Lily at all. They eat the same types of food & she still bites Lily when they are playing. All in all, I think this was a wonderful thing for her. She is happier than I have ever seen her(the vet believes she suffered from severe gingivitis for her entire life).

Just a word of warning, about a month after her surgery, she developed mouth ulcers.

I once has a Siamese with severe gingivitis/stomatitis and we were forced to have a full-mouth extraction done on her. She was very quiet for the first day and into that evening, but by the second day, she was much more active and seemed to be feeling fine. Speak to your vet about what food your kitty should have - I fed mine baby food as per my vet.

Thanks for all the good info, i'll pass it on to my friend.
Stephen

My almost 8 year old cat had a tooth extraction the other day and seems to be doing very well. He is on medication.