molar root infection

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CrystalH

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 1, 2012
Messages
62
Hi all. Posted about uneven incisors a while ago, and my vet suggested a CT that revealed that the right back molar is infected--very small. Funny enough...she also mentioned that the uneven incisors are correcting themselves slowly. She doesn't think the root infection will reprise for a while (very vague on details but does say it will present issues further on in life. I feel like she meant to spare my feelings because I was already pretty worked up about the new dental issues)

For back story, Bowie is about 4--5 in June. We are planning to use Chloramphenicol to blast the infection, but the vet was not too worried it. It is apparently small enough that it wasn't urgent. His eating habits since my last post are back to normal and he's chewing on hay pretty frequently. He is on pain relief...but his habits don't suggest any mouth pain. I still plan on giving him the treatment just in case.

The point of this post is: I wanted to reach out and ask about experiences with tooth issues--particularly tooth infections and how this signifies dental issues exactly. Thanks!
 
My chin had a tooth root abscess about a year and a half ago. This was likely due to dental disease (root and crown elongation) brewing which was diagnosed last august. She is being treated with surgeries about every 2-4 months now for the tooth elongation and malocclusion.

But when she has her root abscess, she had an odor from her mouth and was pawing at her mouth. She did well with baytril and probiotics. It was not a major infection. Actually the resident at the ER didn't find anything the first time I brought her. About a week later I brought her back for worsening symptoms and they found it.

Your vet should not sugar coat the dental disease, as it can be serious in chins. She may just not have enough information to give you a confident diagnosis. Ask for the CT scan images. While I usually discourage people to blindly get medical advice on the internet (I think the internet can be super useful, you just have to be careful and smart about it), I've posted my chin's CT scans on here and just looking at them compared with other images I've found was helpful.
 
I know it's late but I just want to update people that might have similar issues that the infection was treated with the chloramphenicol and his teeth have resolved itself. His incisors actually started aligning again after that. We hadn't done any x-rays to look at the back to confirm, but he's been pretty constant with eating and such, so it was deemed unnecessary. He's been back for checkups and the vet says his teeth from the front look fine. Hopefully this will keep up!
 
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