Cat Chat Feline Forum

My 15 month old extremely, extremely anxious rescue cat (bad start in life), who I have been building very slow but progressive confidence with was bleeding from her mouth last week over a couple of days (although eating well still). At vet found she has a broken canine tooth and bad gingivitis. Her breath has been obnoxious since I got her (and has been mentioned to the vet previously who said gums inflamed). She is on antibiotics and a little pain relief and has stopped bleeding and is full of beans. The vet wants me to think about having a full dental and probably a lot of teeth extracted. She said teeth look healthy and clean but Ging is prob due to kitten infections, poss calicivirus (although thats a guess)

I feel it is very wrong to extract healthy teeth from a young cat like this. I have been researching like mad and have started to introduce a raw diet, as well as supplementing food with coconut oil (very anti inflammatory, antiseptic etc) and will introduce some herbal remedies after antibiotics have finished along with toothpaste (optimistic probably!). I feel I want to try and manage it myself for a while and see how we do. We are going back in a week to see how it looks then.

I have never ever had a cat so frightened at the vets, it was heartbreaking. I worry greatly about what the stress will do to her of an op. My question is: I'm not sure whether to agree to them putting her out and doing dental X-rays etc, poss cleaning at this stage before I try and manage it?

Would appreciate yr opinions if you have experienced similar, also if you are raw food advocate?

If dental problems like this are the no 1 reason for cats having ops (as I have read) then something is going very wrong with the way we are feeding them.

If finances aren't a major concern or Insured you can look into treatment with interferon for her gums, it's commonly used now as a treatment for calici virus mouth problems and often avoids the full extractions at such a young age.

I've had two of my cats have almost all their teeth out due to the same condition. One was about 4 and the other 2 when the operation was done, they had FGS due to the Calici virus and despite trying to manage the condition neither responded particularly well so we opted for extraction. They both now have the tiny teeth at the front and their canines left. It's made such a difference, both of their gums are now a healthy pink and don't look like chopped liver, the gums harden in time and they eat normally. We never tried Interferon as I felt extraction would be the less stressful route for them.

In relation to the toothpaste part you could try this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Logic-Oral-Hygi ... roduct_top" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I use it with my boys and you don't even have to brush their teeth with it, just let them lick it off of something and it works just as well!

I haven't had any experience with the tooth extraction side of things, but I do however feed Midge on a raw diet. I don't think I would go down the DIY route purely because I would be so worried there might be something she's not getting/that I'm missing out of her diet. She is on Natures Menu raw nuggets and I think it's the best thing I ever did for her. Her breath has never smelt, her teeth are amazing and she's in fantastic condition. As far as I'm concerned I would never feed her on anything else . Hope that helps. Keep us updated.