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Dental extraction - what to expect

BlueBird

BlueBird

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
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Hi there,

Harvey broke a tooth a month or so ago. I've taken him to the vets today who confirmed my suspicions that the break was so bad it has killed the tooth off.

He's booked in to get the dead tooth extracted next week. So I just wanted to get some advice for the long term. He will go from 4 to 3 inscissors.

- Will he need syringe feeding from now on? Until his final day's?
- Will he need his inscissors trimmed every now and again from now on? If so how tdo they do this.? I've got bad experience of when I was a child when a vet just got big scissors out and clipped my poor guineas teeth to the gumline. (shudders)
- any other advice on embarking on the dental piggy journey.? Anything I should be looking out for in the long term
 
I will tag in @furryfriends (TEAS) as they are the experts on dental problems in piggies. TEAS is a sanctuary for piggies with special medical needs, mainly with ongoing dental problems. They have access to best vets in the country for treating guinea pigs with dental problems.
 
Sorry to hear about Harvey. Hope all goes well at the vets and with his recovery 🤞

I agree, Debbie at TEAS is amazing and will be able to help
 
He will probably need the opposing incisor trimmed every so often if it doesn’t grow back, Simon or Kim Maddock at the Cat and Rabbit Clinic in Northampton can do this consciously which would be the best option, cheaper too, you would need a referral from your vet
 
Thanks for the responses everyone! I will gladly wait for the expertise of @furryfriends (TEAS)

I've been doing some further research and have come across that some guinea pigs have 2 incisors out when one has died off. So I'm trying to get hold of my vets to understand what they are proposing because I just assumed they'd just take one out. But it's got me wondering would having 2 teeth out create further problems Down n the line? I feel like it would but Harvey is no spring chicken and having GA dental doesn't feel like a great idea but to make matters worse I don't have a car and getting back and forth from Northampton to get specialist dental work done with Simon/Kim Maddock is very difficult especially since I work full time and I'm currently doing a degree part time as well. I'm not able to dip out of work for half a day (longer if I take public transport) every 2 weeks to get Harvey's teeth trimmed! So, although I don't like it, if having both teeth out will avoid regular teeth trims and has a lowish risk of creating more complex dental problems further down the line I have to consider it.
 
Ellie whitehead is at matlock,she does conscious dental,that will be nearer for you.she is excellent,reasonably priced,at present you do not need a referral.The vets is on the forum vet locator.i hope Harvey remains well.xx
 
eileen said:
Ellie whitehead is at matlock,she does conscious dental,that will be nearer for you.she is excellent,reasonably priced,at present you do not need a referral.The vets is on the forum vet locator.i hope Harvey remains well.xx
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I didn't know Ellie did conscious dental. That's good to know but unfortunately it's still about 2hrs journey one way (20mins shorter than to Northampton). With a 10min appointment with maybe 30mins for waiting to be seen with overrun etc that's still going to be almost 5hrs for the journey in total and realistically I can't do that on a fortnightly basis with a full time job. Work would just say jog on! Saturday appointments would be preferable because of this but we all know how hard they are to get.
 
Once a tooth is removed/broken it can unbalance all the incisors and take some time to rebalance once the tooth regrows down and wears against the opposing tooth. If the piggie is left with a totally missing incisor you can have problems, why is this tooth being removed? Why does do you think this tooth is dead?
 
Bill & Ted said:
Once a tooth is removed/broken it can unbalance all the incisors and take some time to rebalance once the tooth regrows down and wears against the opposing tooth. If the piggie is left with a totally missing incisor you can have problems, why is this tooth being removed? Why does do you think this tooth is dead?
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Because it was broken back in October and hasnt moved since. If it has grown its grown a fraction. The tooth was broken quite close to the gumline and must have been a very bad break. I've left it this long to make sure it wasn't showing any signs of coming back but he's now showing other symptoms of it effecting him like UTIs and losing weight. So it's very clearly dead and needs to come out.
 
So Harvey has escaped with only one missing tooth. For now, thankfully my vets have said that they can burr down his teeth consciously thankfully so that's one relief.

My next question is how do I know whether his opposing tooth needs a trim? The advice from the vet was basically "when he stops eating" which I didn't think was very helpful. His opposing tooth (that now doesn't have a partner) hasn't really grown long and straggly. It's maybe half a cm longer than its neighbour since it was broken in autumn and the vet didn't think it was bad enough to be worth trimming it after the extraction. So I'm wondering how I know when it needs attention or not.
 
If it’s grown too long then it will start to effect his eating and cause pain and soreness in the opposing gumline. My Bill used to have a regular incisor burr around every 6-7 weeks at the Cat and Rabbit Clinic in Northampton
 
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