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- Nov 13, 2013
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I will post more on my cat below if anyone wants to read the back story on the question but really I just want to know how bad of an experience this will be for my cat? She absolutely needs at least some teeth extracted, possibly her entire mouth. I have an appointment for her to get this done on the 27th of this month. (It was the quickest they could get her in.) Can anyone with experience on this tell me about how long their cat was in pain/about how long they took to heal? And possibly if they returned to hard food (which I read some do, even without teeth) how long it took them to want to do that? Because hard food is her absolute favorite. I feed her both wet and dry but she just prefers her dry food. I am really upset I even have to put her through this and I just want to know what my cat and I are in for as far as healing and what to expect.
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My cat was found as a sickly stray kitten that we kept taking to the vet to get 'patched up'. She is now 4 years old and has been mostly healthy except for seemingly always having mouth issues that have just gotten way worse lately. Mouth ulcers, teeth rotting out, bad breath, etc.
I found out after having to take her for a second vet visit over these mouth ulcers returning that she has dental disease. It seems as though slowly one by one her teeth are just rotting out. Each time one rots, she is in pain.
I asked my vet about just extracting her teeth because while it would be a big trauma, it would save her from having future tooth related pain and at least eliminate one of her many mouth problems. (She is now on antibiotics 5 days a month for the rest of her life. I don't expect even after a tooth extraction that, that will change because she is super prone to these mouth ulcers. The medicine keeps those away but I suspect she'll always have a problem with that even after tooth removal if ever taken off the medicine.)
When I mentioned tooth extraction the vet agreed that it was a good idea and sounded like she was looking into a full mouth extraction for my cat, yet the vet assistant told me that they clean the teeth and only extract those that are needing to come out. My problem with that is, her teeth could be perfectly fine looking one month and the next be rotting out. Slowly one by one she is having problems with her teeth. So if they only extract some now and then the rest of them get bad we have to put her under another surgery and I would rather just get the pain over with one time and not have to have her suffer more/go under for surgery again. I don't think the vet assistant (who wasn't in the room during the actual exam) knows exactly how bad my cats mouth is so maybe she was just talking about what they generally do and maybe my vet is actually more understanding that all the teeth will probably need to come out as she said "full mouth" and the assistant acted like that was unnecessary?
Anyway, they did mentioned at the vet that sometimes cats have mouths that seemingly just attack their teeth and make them go bad (especially if they have an underlying issue like FIV, which could very well be the case for her since she was a sickly stray kitten when I found her) but that after extraction the pain is greatly reduced since they have one less problem in there causing all their pain.
I would love nothing more than for me to not have to pull ANY of her teeth because I just don't want to inflict pain on her but she has already had to have one pulled (that seemingly just fell out at the vet because it had rotted so badly and I didn't even know it) and one another rotted out and I found it in her food bowl. The rest of her month looked fine not even a month and half ago at the vet and now both her upper fang teeth are rotting at the top. So for her to keep being put through them rotting one by one is breaking my heart. I really just want to know what to expect with my cat when after she comes home from this procedure. Preferably from someone who was in the same boat and has experience in it.
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Thanks so much for any replies. <3
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My cat was found as a sickly stray kitten that we kept taking to the vet to get 'patched up'. She is now 4 years old and has been mostly healthy except for seemingly always having mouth issues that have just gotten way worse lately. Mouth ulcers, teeth rotting out, bad breath, etc.
I found out after having to take her for a second vet visit over these mouth ulcers returning that she has dental disease. It seems as though slowly one by one her teeth are just rotting out. Each time one rots, she is in pain.
I asked my vet about just extracting her teeth because while it would be a big trauma, it would save her from having future tooth related pain and at least eliminate one of her many mouth problems. (She is now on antibiotics 5 days a month for the rest of her life. I don't expect even after a tooth extraction that, that will change because she is super prone to these mouth ulcers. The medicine keeps those away but I suspect she'll always have a problem with that even after tooth removal if ever taken off the medicine.)
When I mentioned tooth extraction the vet agreed that it was a good idea and sounded like she was looking into a full mouth extraction for my cat, yet the vet assistant told me that they clean the teeth and only extract those that are needing to come out. My problem with that is, her teeth could be perfectly fine looking one month and the next be rotting out. Slowly one by one she is having problems with her teeth. So if they only extract some now and then the rest of them get bad we have to put her under another surgery and I would rather just get the pain over with one time and not have to have her suffer more/go under for surgery again. I don't think the vet assistant (who wasn't in the room during the actual exam) knows exactly how bad my cats mouth is so maybe she was just talking about what they generally do and maybe my vet is actually more understanding that all the teeth will probably need to come out as she said "full mouth" and the assistant acted like that was unnecessary?
Anyway, they did mentioned at the vet that sometimes cats have mouths that seemingly just attack their teeth and make them go bad (especially if they have an underlying issue like FIV, which could very well be the case for her since she was a sickly stray kitten when I found her) but that after extraction the pain is greatly reduced since they have one less problem in there causing all their pain.
I would love nothing more than for me to not have to pull ANY of her teeth because I just don't want to inflict pain on her but she has already had to have one pulled (that seemingly just fell out at the vet because it had rotted so badly and I didn't even know it) and one another rotted out and I found it in her food bowl. The rest of her month looked fine not even a month and half ago at the vet and now both her upper fang teeth are rotting at the top. So for her to keep being put through them rotting one by one is breaking my heart. I really just want to know what to expect with my cat when after she comes home from this procedure. Preferably from someone who was in the same boat and has experience in it.
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Thanks so much for any replies. <3