Dr. Emerson and her receptionist Stephanie give us some insight on what it's like dealing with a pet with dental problems. If you feel like your pet might be experiencing any of these symptoms, call now and set up your appointment at the Animal Hospital (662) 524-4145
Wcbi news app dr. karen emerson: good morning sunrisers.
I'm dr. karen emerson and today i have with me my receptionist stephanie, and this big kitty cat right here is grits.
She is actually a maine coon.
This is one of the largest cats that we see.
She's almost i think 30 pounds.
Her mom brought her in and she just really wasn't feeling well.
She wasn't eating normally.
She noticed when she went to pet her around the face here that she would kind of jerk back.
She was actually losing some weight and there was also a different smell coming from her mouth and of course, grits does not really like us to look in her mouth, but in a minute i'm going to try to show you, but what we did is we actually put her under anesthesia and i did something called a dental prophy.
You hear me talking a lot about dental prophies and a lot of people don't think... associate cats as much as having dental issues, but she does.
Dr. karen emerson: we actually put her under and what i found was actually quite shocking.
Several of her big molar teeth back there actually had gingival tissue over the top of them, where she was actually chewing on her gum.
I don't know if you've ever... you probably experienced having a bad tooth or having an inflamed gum, the pain you feel as a human, just think of the pain she was feeling.
Every time she was trying to bite down on her cat food or eat, she was rubbing that gingival tissue.
It was actually covered the entire tooth.
She also had some very, very large ulcerations in her mouth that had formed on the inside of her cheek from the teeth rubbing and getting infected because when that tissue covers the entire tooth, it just makes a huge bed for bacteria and for disease.
Dr. karen emerson: so basically it's so good her owner noticed her having these problems and she let us do the dental, because she would have end up losing those teeth due to bacterial inflammation and basically the teeth would have rotted.
We went in, we cleaned all those teeth.
We were actually able to save all those teeth.
We did a laser treatment on the inside of her mouth where all the ulcers were.
She was improved drastically the next day.
So it is so important to have your cats, when they go in for their annual exam, to have their teeth checked and really observe your cats and make sure they're eating normally and that they're not having any clinical signs.
Grits is doing great today, and i promise, your pets will thank you.
Announcer: wcbi animal health with dr. emerson was brought to you by emerson animal hospital in west point.