What could it be? Re-occuring malo? root issues?

[Tillygizmo]

Hi all, Tilly just had another molar trim last week. when I first brough her home her mouth was a bit wet and I let it go about two days waiting to see if it was just from the procedure and whatnot. It has increasingly gotten worse again and she goes into the vet wednesday to go under and probably get x rays to see if its the roots (which we didn't think of before now because she has always been better after the trims).

I am so afraid it is her roots... does this mean she will suffer continuously and need to be put down ? I dont know whatt to think and I need to have someone bring her wednesday to her appointment because i need to be out of town for something... i wont even get to bring her..:cry3:

please, advice and thoughts ?

 

[ticklechin]

Its not uncommon for soft tissue injuries, teeth cracking, vet missing points because of all the drool, since it has gotten worse after the trim it may be one of the above. Has she ever had x-rays done? how often is she trimmed? how old was she when she first started getting trimmed? Has she been diagnosed with malo or does she just get points?
Does she usually resume eating after a trim or is she had fed full time?

 

[Tillygizmo]

She had x rays the first and second time she had malo to ensure it was just the spurs and not the roots. She was trimmed for the first time at age 3 and she is now 6. After her first one she didnt need a trim for about 3 years (so not until this past year). After she had that one, she needed another only 2 months after that (which is the trim that was only 1 week ago). This totals 3 molar trims. They have called it malocclusion but have never mentioned anything about her roots, only spurs. She usually resumes eating normally and does not drool or seem uncomfortable afterward and only needs pain meds for 1-2 days.

How can the vet tell if it is soft tissue injury and what can be done?
Can anything be done for a cracked tooth?
Would she need to be put under for any of the above?

 

[ticklechin]

IMO she does not have a bad case of malo, maybe only a couple of teeth out of alignment but that is still technically called malo. If she went three years between the first and second then two months I would "blame" it on a missed point. She sounds like Dante-he is almost 17 and needs periodic filings-he has no real schedule-sometimes its a year or two, sometimes its 6 month or 9 months and a couple of times it was only a month or two-those times the vet admitted that points were missed due to his missaligned cheek teeth are the back ones, drool pools there during the procedure and things are missed.

That said, the vet would know if there was soft tissue injury by the tools used since blood would be involved, and cracked teeth grow out eventually. Have the vet put her under and take a look again since the drool is increasing, something is bothering her.

Severe malo chins can be pinned down to just about the day they need to be filed and drool starts, the teeth grow that steady and the situation repeats itself every 6-8 weeks. They do not resume eating, need to be fed 24/7/365 and the only relief for them is they stop drooling and appear to have pain relief when not eating.

 

[Tillygizmo]

Thanks so much. That gives me hope that it isn't anything more than what it has been and perhaps just a missed spur. It makes the most sense that way. I really appreciate your thoughts. Thank you! I will update the forum as she has her appointment tomorrow. I am out of town but of course obsessively in touch with the person who is taking her for me.

Thanks again

 

[ticklechin]

How did your kid do?

 

[Tillygizmo]

She got through the surgery fine. The story leading up to it is interesting and left me steaming with anger hundreds of miles away from her.

Unfortunately, my very educated chinchilla veterinarian doesn't do surgeries so she is able to dictate the issues to the vets who do the surgery and whatnot. Shortly after Tilly was dropped off I got a call from the dr who is not so educated on chins. She told me that by looking in her mouth she can't see any issues and perhaps it was an upset stomach that caused the drooling.......

I told her that chins dont have the ability to vomit or become nauseus and that we really need to keep looking in the mouth. She basically told me she didnt know what to do. I asked her if there were any visible cracks in the teeth and she told me she checked them all out. I asked if she was sedated and she said no. I asked how she saw the very back teeth without having been sedated. She didn't answer and I said "i wouldnt want her sedated if I didnt think it was neccessary but she hasnt had x rays in awhile and we don't know whats going on". She hesitantly agreed...

In the end, she found that one of tillys teeth is actually much much wider than her others in the back. It is almost double the width as the one directly across and it also grows at an extreme angle into her tongue. She filed it down as much as she could and (wouldnt admit she didn't see it the first time) also width wise a bit.

She made a comment about possibly extracting in the future which after this experience I will not do until i get second and third opinions from my usual vet.

UGH the stress...I even begged the dr for pain meds because that dr doesnt like to give them and tilly has always needed metacam for at least 2 days afterward.
I am just happy she is very comfortable and had a great bath and is happy to be back with her cagemate.

Any thoughts about having a "wide" tooth?

 

[ticklechin]

I heard that baloney once from a ding dong vet, when D.J. went to the dentist for the first time a year after the ding dong told me about the "twice the size molar" I asked her about it and she looked at me like I was nuts. It sounds like she had a HUGE point that was missed, it can make the tooth look "bigger". You can get the idea from this pic of a point.

 

[Tillygizmo]

oh wow yeah that looks like it! thank you.. at least i know it might not actually be twice the size... she probably didn't want me to say i wouldnt pay them. I am too worried about Tilly to be concerned with fighting vet bills right now anyway.

I appreciate your help sooo much : )

I was told today she is taking her meds like a champ and I will see her tomorrow afternoon!!! I cannot wait to pet her and love her

 

[ticklechin]

Give her a scritch for me too!

 

[Tillygizmo]

Hi all just an update. Since the THIRD recent trim, she still isnt back to normal. The drooling hasnt quite started again yet but chewing is uncomfortable and she wont touch hay or wood at all. I finally spoke to my preferred vet, Dr. Cantamessa, and she finally agreed it might be a small abcess or something we cant see. We are treating her for a short while with antibiotics and pain medecine (metacam). We will take it from there.

She thinks it is an infection based on the fact that her drool smells and she is hungry and its not a gi issue and also that its not her roots or spurrs anymore. I dont know how accurate this dx is but I am willing to try something else before we even think about extraction at all.

I will keep you posted

 

[ticklechin]

If it is a abscess you are going to treat, a short duration of antibiotics won't do much. Tooth abscesses in chinchillas are a BEAR to get rid of. Last time I treated one it took 20 days on of Trimethsulfate, 10 days off, 20 days on for it to go away. If you do it at least treat for 14 days, 7 days is way too short.

 

[Tillygizmo]

Wow, I didnt know that thank you for the advice. The doctor had me take a day to half her dose of metacam to see what type of response she had. She started drooling again. The vet said this means she is having pain (duh) somewhere that she doesnt know about and isnt sure how to determine. She wants to refer me for more diagnostic type testing. What types of tests are used to determine these things?

Is it possible that she could have pain somewhere from something they can already see on an x ray and like what? I am sad we are no fixing this for her quickly because she will be on metacam for longer than I would like to keep her comfortable.

 

[mishellyshel]

my vet agrees on the long term treatment with the trimeth. she prescribes it at my regular pharmacy and i pay 8 bucks for a huge bottle. its worth a try.

 

[ticklechin]

If your chin is going to be on long term meds, have the vet RX famotidine to prevent ulcers in the digestive tract.

The diagnostics they may want is a CT scan, expensive. I had it done on Gino, it was 1256.00. The resolution is much higher so things like perio disease, fractures, root issues at the "apex", infections are more easily seen.

 

[mommyslittlechins2010]

ok this might sound dumb but i'm still a new chins mom and i wanna know how they can get an abscess in thier mouth?

 

[ticklechin]

Abscesses happen when teeth fracture under the gum, the pulp of the tooth becomes infected or chins with malocclusion they get periodontal disease and the perio pockets get impacted with food, the bacteria then cause abscesses.

 

[Claire D]

Abscesses can also be caused by trauma - a splinter of wood or a mouth ulcer which then becomes infected, for example

 

[Tillygizmo]

The diagnostics they may want is a CT scan, expensive. I had it done on Gino, it was 1256.00. The resolution is much higher so things like perio disease, fractures, root issues at the "apex", infections are more easily seen.

My question is this: If they find any of the above, can anything be done about these things that will cure what is going on? or am I better off letting her try long term pain meds and allow her to have as long as she can without the stress of being put under again and again?

 

[ticklechin]

To be honest when I had the CT done I was going through my heroic "I can get malo cured if I spend enough money", now that I am more jaded about malo and have seen the outcome enough times to know no matter how much money, time, effort, experimental treatments it is not going to be cured.

That said, the CT is only as good as the tech who is reading it-I went to a imaging center that only dealt with MRI's CT's and x-rays so the tech spotted the issue which was a apical abscess. This was a chin with malo and heart issues, hindsight the abscess was the least of his problems but I bullied forward with treatment.

You have to have a heart to heart with the vet as to what they feel the outcome is going to be, what is the degree of malo, how involved are the roots, how often does she need to be filed, is she still being a chin, does she still do the things she loves, all these questions you need to look at as far as quality of life. Long term pain management can only go so far, since we cannot ask the chin how much pain they are in and do we have the dose right. Sometimes you have to just ask her does she want to go on, she will tell you and you will know in your heart when to say when if you keep a open mind, not like my closed one.