Pearly-white buried "Treasure"...
22 Jan 2009

      By Petra Wittsell, Tech Support

 

When little Henrietta was brought in for an exam with Dr Turfle her petparents were concerned about her teeth. It seemed something wasn’t quite right.

 

After a complete physical exam Dr Turfle did indeed find that this poor little kitty had some tartar build-up and one loose tooth. It was one of the small incisors on the bottom. An appointment was made with Dr Franklin to have Henrietta’s teeth cleaned and her loose tooth extracted…

 

The big day for Henrietta’s oral surgery arrived and she was brought in early in the morning. All of her pre-surgical blood work was within normal limits and she was safely anesthetized in preparation for her oral evaluation and treatment.

 

Her teeth were thoroughly examined one by one, then cleaned and polished. Two of her canine teeth, the lower ones, and one of the smaller premolars on the left lower side, were missing.

 

As Dr Franklin was numbing the left lower area of the jaw, where the extraction was to take place, he noticed that the areas where the teeth were missing didn’t feel right. When he extracted the incisor, a squirt of liquid came out with the tooth, which led Dr Franklin to believe that something REALLY wasn’t right. He decided to take a digital radiograph of the extraction site.

  (<--See the buried "treasure"?)

 

What a surprise! Henrietta’s “missing” teeth weren’t missing at all. They were buried underneath the gumline. When Henrietta lost her baby teeth, her adult ones just never surfaced. They grew along the lower jawbone instead of up and out.

 

 Dr Franklin knew that this was a problem for Henrietta’s overall health, especially since  one of those teeth had already developed an abscess.  He decided to surgically remove the buried canine tooth, and the premolar on the left side. Without any problems he safely extracted the two teeth, and sutured the site up.

 

Since the buried canine teeth were taking up such a big part of the lower jaw, Dr Franklin recommended that Henrietta come back in six months to have the right lower canine tooth extracted. (This would allow the bone to heal and build up first, thus hopefully preventing damage to the jaw.)

 

 Thanks to digital radiographs the pearly white “treasure” was revealed, and Henrietta was returned to her petparents after a safe recovery.

 

Keeping a pet’s “smile” healthy can go a long way in protecting her/his well-being!

 

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