Dental problems with chin and extreme weight loss

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purikura

Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
13
I've posted on the forum for help a couple of times (thanks to all who have helped in the past) but wanted to share my story, among the many others, about how quickly things can go wrong.
10 days ago, my chin started heavily grinding up pellets and dropping them all around his bowl. He'd done this in the past so I didn't think much of it, I just assumed it was a boredom thing. He had always stopped doing it so I had decided it wasn't his teeth - what a mistake.
By a couple of days later, it was clear that he was grinding everything up and eating nothing. He had also stopped pooping. I knew that was a bad sign so immediately went to the vet (same day appt) who said it was probably dental, and gave Metacam and a gut motility drug (Ranitidine?) due to the lack of poop. She told me to come back the next day and they would look at the teeth under anesthesia.
That evening I soaked some pellets, and he ate a bit and we had a couple of poops. Progress! When I returned to the vet the next day, I told them the good news (mistake) so they said they would attempt an oral examination without anesthesia, as they did not want to put him under until he was properly eating/pooping again. It was a struggle but the vet said she saw that the back lower molar on one side was growing horizontally towards the tongue and that it was overgrown and needed trimming. However she said they did not want to do it until he was eating/pooping again and that providing he started to eat it could be left untrimmed.
For some reason against my better judgement I decided to follow this advice. I then was sent away for work Mon-Fri, so the chin stayed with a close relative who would feed/keep a close eye/give medication etc. I hoped that since he had started to eat on his own again that I could do the trimming when I got back. Well, I got back yesterday to find that not only has he not eaten/pooped period since I left, he is also not drinking now either. I have managed to get 15ml of Critical Care into him over 9 hours, but he absolutely refuses to voluntarily eat and the force feeding has been a huge struggle - fur slips, biting hard enough to split skin, etc. I weighed him and he has dropped from ~850g to 520g. I have managed to scrape an appointment on Monday for the teeth trimming and x-ray and he will be staying in all day so I hope they give some fluids etc then.

At the moment I don't really know what the outcome will be, I have tried searching threads but honestly cannot wrap my head around chin dental anatomy at all and have tried every method in the book with the force feeding - burrito, flavouring it up with purees etc and it has not worked. Why is the tooth growing horizontally? Does that mean it is likely the root is elongated as well or is the tooth simply misplaced? I have already come to the decision that if the roots show as being elongated that I will have to PTS.
 
If the chin hasn't pooped in a week it's very likely the digestive tract has shut down and is dying or dead. Within about 24 hours of no gut activity the digestive bacteria starts to die. What he needs, if it's not too late, is food, water, probiotics, and digestive aid. Gut stasis should be treated within 24 hours of starting or it's not likely to start back up again. If the gut is shut down completely, the chin wont want to eat because it can no longer digest food, it will just sit in it's stomach.

To answer your other questions, a chins teeth grow all the time, so if they aren't wearing them down fast enough they can start growing sideways when they run out of room, as well as up into the skull or down into the jaw. There is no way to know if the roots are elongated too without an x-ray. A wild chin's diet is pretty poor, course scrub grass, and other not very high quality foods, so they have to eat all the time, they also chew up their own rocks for dust baths. A domestic chin eats a high quality diet, meaning they don't need to eat as much, they are healthier and live longer, but also it allows the teeth to grow quicker.
 
Just waiting outside the vets now...
Thanks for that Amethyst. I did find some poop (albeit very small) in the cage yesterday but am not sure when those are from. Got some Critical Care in over the weekend but now am worried about his digestive tract as I wasn’t aware about that.. I plan to get some probiotics today to mix with the CC. What digestive aid do you think he needs? I am also going to ask the vet to X-ray today.
 
Final update..
Went to the vet yesterday and had the trimming. All seemed well and the vet said the procedure went great and to come back next week (but didn’t X-ray even though I explicitly asked..). Came home and he was dopey but thought all was well.
After being home for a couple of hours I started to feel something was wrong. It was as if he couldn’t control his body, specifically his back legs. His front legs would move one way and his back legs would go a totally different way, meaning he was falling off shelves etc. However I got a good deal of CC in him and he seemed a bit better so I thought all was well.
This morning I was called in to work (I work in a hospital emergency department) but luckily had got up in the night to feed him. Went to work but had a bad feeling, was thinking about calling the vet to take him in again. Unfortunately, when I came home he had passed away and was laid out in the corner of his cage. His stomach was extremely bloated and there were no poops anywhere so I’m assuming it was stasis/anaesthesia/both.
Needless to say I am completely heartbroken. To anyone reading this... if you ever think something is wrong, GO TO A GOOD VET IMMEDIATELY. I can’t help but feel like if I had a bit more sense that my boy would still be here.
 
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