urgent help / advice please dental problem

We noticed friday eveninh our chin couldnt open his eye, got vet appt for sunday. The vet (not our usual as he dont work sundays) said it was an eye infection and gave eye drops and pain relief. He was still eating fine up to this point but, no water intake. So we decided to give some water via syringe.
On monday he was refusing food all to getherand still no water, his eye looked worse and was trying to pull along at his jaw under the sore eye. We called vets back up last night, got an appt first thing this morning.
Our usual vet has took a look at him and has said it is dental problem plus eye infection. We were given 3 options

1) leave things as they are and basically give him pain relief to keep him out of pain. He would still live best possible life.
2) have dental work done, with high percentage he wont make it through or will die in days/weeks due to not eating.
3) put him to sleep (vet didnt recommend this)

Anyone else been in this situation and can offer some advice?

We have found another vet that were going to tonight for a second opinion, although our vet now has been fantastic with rabbit, guinea pig and gerbil we feel it would be best to get another opinion. Thank you

I'm sorry you are going through this. Did your vet take x rays?

Shooper said:

I'm sorry you are going through this. Did your vet take x rays?

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No he didnt, he told us this through checking his mouth. I do have another appt with my usual vet on thurs morning to talk about what we'd like to do.

I am living in hope by seeing this other vet tonight he will be able to offer some more experienced feedback.

Until you get x-rays, it is just a guessing game. Having dental work is not a death sentence as long as you are willing to hand feed him until he feels like eating on his own again. Leaving him alone, he will slowly starve to death if his mouth hurts and he can't eat on his own.

obcsed said:

Until you get x-rays, it is just a guessing game. Having dental work is not a death sentence as long as you are willing to hand feed him until he feels like eating on his own again. Leaving him alone, he will slowly starve to death if his mouth hurts and he can't eat on his own.

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I will bring up about having xrays, can only guess this wasnt mentioned if we dont plan to go down operating route. Our vet said hes had chins die on operating table while trying to correct the issue. However the extent of dental problem is unknown, im guessing a filing down would be less risky.

He is on pain relief & has eye drops at the moment, i am hand feeding which i do think is bit of a battle but he did finally come around to idea.

What is likelyhood of him eating normal again after a operation? Thought of not doing anything for him upsets me more.

You honestly need the full picture of the situation before advice is given. If this is malocclusion and/or root elongation there is no amount of money, time or medical procedures that can be done to cure it or even keep the chin alive is some sort of quality of life, there are OMG my chin is cured from malo/elongation threads that are total equivocal BS, I know it for a fact since I lived the dream that I could cure malo and elongation with doing every treatment out there minus a couple that even my sick mind could not put a chin through, I hand feed 24/7/365 for over 10 years on 8 chins, spent well over 15k on treatments and was left with nothing, all chins suffered and all either died or were put down. You cannot cure it, you are only putting off the inevitable which is death. Are you keeping the chin alive for you or do you do the kind thing and not let the chin suffer, its the choice you have to make.

You need to know EXACTLY what the problem is, and also EXACTLY what the vet proposes as treatment.
He may just need a burring, or he may have an infected gum, or he may have root elongation.

We can't really comment until we know the full story, sorry.

You definitely need the x rays to get the full story. Maybe you should ring around and find an exotic vet specialist who has more chin experience.

So sorry you and your chin are going through this xxxxxx

Other vet we took him to was useless they had on their website 20yrs expierence with chins.

We have an appt tomorrow with our usual vet and will be asking about getting xrays done. We couldnt make thurs appt as im due a baby any day now am unable to drive and hubby couldnt get time off work.

Things have got worse, he did perk up ive been feeding him 3x a day; then we noticed he was limping. He isnt using paw on same side of the pain not sure if hes injuried that. Hes unresponsive, and not bothered about food he seems to give out a cry every now and then. I cant see him turning the corner

I agree no decision can be made with out an xray. Randomly filing could cause major issues if say he has an abscess from a piece of hay...

Thank you for your replies.

Sadly Dexter passed away at 4:30pm in my arms. I am feeling pretty heart broken.

Aww, that's terrible. You did the best you could. Dexter was lucky to have such a sweet owner like you..