Hard yellow growth on incisor root

[Danielle Smith]

Quint is booked in to see the vet tomorrow but I just wondered if anyone could shed any light on what on earth is happening to his right lower incisor.

There’s a yellow very hard growth at the tooth root which in itself does not appear painful. It is attached to the tooth and some spicules are coming out of the gum, which looks inflamed and is very sensitive, making the poor lad jump if the area is touched. I do wonder if it’s a bony tumour?

He’s eating absolutely fine, hoovering up hay, and is currently gaining weight (probably thanks to poorly Faye’s oats and critical care leftovers that I leave in the cage). I am just very stumped, as he’s never hurt his teeth or broken any incisors. Any ideas gratefully received!

 

[Free Ranger]

That's genuinely grim and similar to something I saw in my rainbow girl Zara.

I should add those are my vet's fingers - at this point I didn't know those teeth went down that far! I'll give a brief summary but here's the link to my old thread with little vids of Zara chewing Zara's stopped biting me. I will say at this point that it didn't end well for us so if you are sensitive just check out the chewing vids on page 1. She eventually went under to have the incisor removed but could not recover from the anaesthetic afterwards But the vet said the op went surprisingly smoothly and that the weird extra lump actually just came away from the rest of the tooth - it wasn't attached to the enamel. Her wound was clean - she had lost a little weight before the op but her eating had been up and down for a week or so because the tooth was obviously bothering her. I think it was gut stasis although she took a big syringe feed before bed along with her painkillers and when I tidied her little fuzzy body she still had good sized poops. But the GA affected her badly

Quint looks like he's been chewing on one side - see how the incisors slope at an angle? Zara's are the same and you'll see in the vid how she chewed with her jaw stuck out to avoid catching it. The first vet shaved a few mm off the top of the dicky tooth and that was actually enough to get her eating hay again. The good tooth took the pressure - it was just not a permanent solution and there may have been an underlying infection, I don't know. We speculated that Zara had cracked her tooth at some point down at the root (the whole thing came out much easier than expected) as she was a scary feisty girl and had charged her neighbours with open mouth and teeth bared as she crashed into the bars. That had been some months before - it was the only thing I could think of. But it might have been a complete coincidence and they did also mention the possibility of a tumour.

Debbie at TEAS @furryfriends (TEAS) was kind enough to show this photo to experienced piggy vet Simon at the Northampton Cat and Rabbit Clinic (a Mecca for owners of dental piggies on here) and he apparently said he'd not seen anything like this before, so anything your vet can tell us would be useful. Looking at how that lump is embedded in the gum brings back a memory and a word of warning. The vet that was lined up to do Zara's op had done extractions before in all sorts of species and said the difficulty with bottom incisors is that piggy's jaw is very fragile here anyway - even in a normal healthy pig - and there was a chance of breaking the jaw when you try and extract the tooth. She said that if that happened under anaesthetic it was kinder to put piggy to sleep. None of this sounded great so you can understand how overjoyed I was when Zara made it through in about 20 mins. It was just the after effects...

Pigs can manage very well with one bottom tooth as they re-learn to chew in a way that means one can keep the top two down OK, but it's always wise to keep an eye to make sure the incisors aren't overgrowing. A pulled tooth can actually come back again - something else to watch for. But unlike molar dentals (which are done under GA) an incisor trim (burring - never clipping) is a quick conscious procedure requiring, so my vet says, a little power tool and a pair of firm hands (presumably the ones in the pic). It takes a few minutes and doesn't hurt piggy although they might be a bit surprised at the time. Even if incisors are burred too short they grow back really fast - you could be back to normal in a week or less - and there have been forum pigs with no bottom incisors at all and they managed just fine.

Good luck at the vets little Quint x

 

[Free Ranger]

Hi there. Any news on Quint?

 

[Swissgreys]

I was also wondering about this too @Danielle Smith
I hope Quint is doing better now.

 

[VickiA]

Hope that the vet has been able to sort out whatever is going on with those teeth.

 

[Danielle Smith]

Sorry for the delay everyone, family issues and very poorly piggies along with uni work meant I was swept off my feet for awhile.

So, I saw my vet and she says this is a very unusual phenomenon she has only seen in rabbits before, usually when the tooth root has been damaged by trauma, malocclusion, or metabolic bone disease and causes accelerated growth of some of the tooth structure. Thank you so much for your helpful input @Free Ranger, as my vet agreed with me that removal of the offending tooth would probably not have a good outcome. Since Quint is still eating fine and not losing weight (and his molars are not showing any sign of malocclusion), we agreed that she would burr his teeth so they met more evenly and would practice "watchful waiting". A good outcome overall!