sores in cats mouth

[5catzhome]

My 7 yr. old female cat has sores in her mouth. The vet says its a autoimmune disease. She is getting cortisone shots once a mo. When she eats it must hurt because she digs at her mouth causing it to bleed . I feel so bad for her and don't know what more I can do. Any suggestions.

[Janey]

Hi and welcome. One of my elderly cats suffered the similar, although I don’t think his bled. We adopted him when he was about 11, they didn’t know his age exactly and the rescue gave him a dental before he came to me and described his mouth as ‘looking like raw liver’ when they found him. However, his mouth problems continued and we tried everything including mouth rinses and I had to scrape his teeth at one point twice a day with a cotton bud (not pleasant) as the tartar built up. Eventually he had all his teeth removed and this sorted it, although the vet said it may not, so it was a blessing. It may be an option at some point for your cat too. Btw, our cat had no problems eating biscuits etc with no teeth. I hope that you find something to help.

[Ruth B]

I'm not sure if it is the same thing but one of my cats, about 20 months old has had problems with his mouth. I noticed mainly as bad breath and questioned the vet about it when he went for his booster jabs. The vet diagnosed viral gingivitis and i could see his gums were all red and inflamed. Unfortunately the vet was unable to offer any real advise baring keeping an eye on it and the possibility of him having to have extractions later in life. I have checked on line as best I can but been unable to come up with any real answers. Fortunately it doesn't seem to give him any problems at the moment.

I do wonder if there are several related mouth problems that at present can't really be explained or treated (sorry its not what you want to hear) and different vets have different terms for similar conditions.

The only thing I can suggest is to try mashing up his food with water and see if your vet can give you a painkiller to add to the food, making her mouth bleed can only be increasing her discomfort.

On a more positive note, we did have a 13 year old Ragdoll that had dental problems and went in and had a lot of teeth removed and the rest cleaned. Unfortunately the soreness in his mouth quickly returned and he went back and had the rest of his back teeth removed. That solved the problem for him and he spent the next 3 years, until old age finally caught up, happily eating his dried crunchies in preference to the wet food provided.

I hope the steroids work and your vet can provide at least some relief from the pain for her.

[booktigger]

I'd speak to the vet regarding removing her teeth, or getting a second opinion - I'm fairly sure Dr Addie's site recommends against steroids for it, it's a while since I've dealt with gingivitis so can't remember the reason, but reading her site might help - there are also foods that can help with the soreness.

[Crewella]

My Grumpy Nellie had all her teeth out because of similar problems, and is much better now. I found that making sure her food didn't contain additives (preservatives, colour, sugars etc., I used Butchers Classic tinned as it's also cheap) did help.