Incisor removal or realignment?

[Missy]

So...I have a 7 week old kit who several days ago didn't want to take a bite of an oxbow veggie treat (he gets a little piece of one or he squeals incessantly at his mother and tries to take hers). It seemed odd but I didn't pay much attention to this as not everybody likes them.

We do regularly check teeth to ensure they're yellow and of correct lenth, and last night his weren't. He has a little scuff on his face which leads me to believe he did a face plant and his bottom incisors were pushed inwards and actually criss crossing a little.

I went to my exotic veterinarian (I didn't get the my regular one but instead another partner at the practice) and tried to see what we can do. Her feeling on the subject was that we should pull all the incisors and let him just chew with molars. He's only 7 weeks, this is a pretty life changing event. For now, I had her anesthetise him and grind his bottom incisors down as far as she felt comfortable to give the root a chance to heal. She said they felt rooted in pretty firmly.

I'm more interested in doing a little more corrective action before I remove a pretty important part of little mans face. Any vet can pull a tooth, most should defer to veterinary dentists...I've seen the difference in technique and healing time. Has anyone gone this route and had success in their chins?

 

[ticklechin]

I would not do anything on a 7 week old kit, the bones are too fragile and the vet is asking for a broken jaw or worse, frankly I think your vet is nuts. Adult incisor removal is a very risky operation that usually has a poor outcome since the incisors are very long under the bone.


Here are some pictures of adult chinchillas skulls I own


The lower jaw and incisor -you can see how long the tooth is and how little bone
structure is around the tooth.

Here you can see how deep the upper incisor goes into the skull

The nasal cavity- you can see how fragile the bone is that the incisors are inbedded in

 

[InkedupTara]

Wow, amazing pictures Dawn

 

[tunes]

A chin who has his teeth pulled has an incredibly piss poor quality of life. It isn't just pulling "A" tooth. When you pull one or two, all the others will try to shift fill the empty space. If I had a choice between pulling a chin's teeth or putting it to sleep, I would put it to sleep. Someone who used to frequent this forum had a chin that the vet insisted on pulling the teeth on. Despite every person answering her querry and telling her not to do it, she did it anyway. The chin suffered right up until it's death. That's not what pet stewardship is about.

Also, he's just a baby and I agree 100% with Dawn. He is too young to have that kind of surgery on his mouth, even if it was something I would consider.

 

[ticklechin]

That is the other point Peggy (Tunes) made, tooth removal does not work ever. The chin teeth have no anatomical root, often removed teeth grow back since it is virtually impossible for the vet to get all the tooth out and if they do their adjacent teeth would have tipped into the space and then you have a nightmare occlusion.

 

[Missy]

You can look at radiographs all day long but actually SEEING those little skulls makes me wonder how many people have even done that operation successfully?

Being a saturday I knew I wasn't going to get a vet appointment with my exotics vet, I went to the emergency hospital nearby and had them call and convince my hospital I needed squeezed in this morning so I got the only vet available today. I didn't even look at my bill to see if she did radiographs but I know she didn't show me any.

I was hoping trimming them way down would give the root bed time to get over any swelling and HOPEFULLY readjust to where they should be and start growing out correctly as he transitions fully to solid food. Then encourage a LOT of chewing so the mechanical force of it could theoretically help push them where they need to be. Sigh, I need to put braces on this kid....and make all of them start wearing helmets.

 

[Missy]

She made it sound like "oh he'll just eat with his molars instead", yeah, but he's also gonna be kinda gumming all of his food.

If they don't readjust on their own....he knocked them out of alignment, why couldn't a surgeon push them back and temporarily fix them that way so they DO heal where they should be? Its just his bottom incisors, they top is untouched thankfully.

On the note of "quality of life" I'm also not interested in having him go to a vet every month to be anesthetized for a teeth filing. If it means going through a short period of some pain to have a normal life I'm all for it, but not forcing him to have a lifelong committment to constant vet visits.

 

[ticklechin]

Are they loose?