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Subject:
From:
April Armstrong Campbell <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 25 Mar 2004 21:25:02 -0500
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>From:    Melanie and Dustin <[log in to unmask]>
>
>has anyone ever had to have one of their fuzzies teeth extracted???
>i was just told by my doctor that my five year old fuzzy, hashimoto,
>needs to have his front tooth removed.  it's rotten (he chipped it
>when he was young, and now it's gone bad).  my vet says that once its
>removed he'll be fine, except his lip will curl in a little bit.  but
>i'm worried about him.
>
>i'm worried how he'll adapt to having only one front tooth after the
>surgery.  it seems like it would be hard for him to eat.  i'm wondering
>if i'm going to have to hand feed him for the rest of his life.
 
As usual, I'm hopelessly behind on FMLs...
 
I work as a vet tech and we have to extract teeth all the time for cats,
dogs, etc., and the vast majority of them do just fine and don't need
to change their diets at all.  Some of the ones with really bad teeth
overall may need some dietary changes (soft food for some, though
immediately postop, if they have had extractions, we actually DON'T
usually recommend soft food due to the possibility of it getting stuck
in their open tooth sockets and getting impacted there and causing
infection), but most don't.  In fact, we had one old female cat who had
NO TEETH AT ALL who insisted on gumming her dry food and wouldn't eat
wet food or even her dry food if it was moistened!
 
Your ferret will more likely than not adapt just fine to the missing
tooth-they do most of their chewing with their back teeth anyway, and if
your ferret is not eating a meat diet (i.e. actual meat that it has to
tear with its canine teeth versus mostly kibble), it will likely have
little effect on its eating habits at all.
 
The harder and worse thing to deal with would be periodontal disease,
abscesses or other problems that could develop as the result of NOT
removing the bad tooth.  Dental disease is not just a matter of what's
going on in the mouth-periodontal disease can lead to other, worse,
systemic problems such as kidney disease!  Dental health is more
important than most people know, and I think the statistic is something
like 80% of pets have some form of dental disease...
 
FYI.
 
Good luck!
 
-April
[Posted in FML issue 4463]

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