GOOD TIPS FOR YOUR PET'S HEALTH AND WELL BEING
Dental Health Is Important For Your Pet's Total Health!
We doctors here at Mesa Veterinary Hospital are very fussy about your pet's total health. We know that your cat or dog cannot be healthy without good oral hygiene and regular dental care. To that end we offer a short demonstration in finding a common malady - a bad tooth on one of our routine physical examinations.
A German Shepherd Dog came in for vaccinations, but in the
process of carefully looking him over, we found a broken and infected fourth
upper premolar.
Here you can click on the picture to see how the tooth had an exposed root
canal. The owner elected to have us anesthetize the dog for further
evaluation and dental radiographs - a set of dental x-rays.
This little radiograph shows an area of bony loss (by the pointer) which gives
the bone a darker appearance. The owner was informed that the tooth could
have an infection developing in the dark area and he was informed of the
different procedures designed to treat this problem. He elected to have
the tooth removed.
The pointer shows the open canal as the darkened area in the picture. Here
is the picture of the tooth showing how the blackened center of the tooth was
carrying infection up into the bone.
This picture shows how the gum line looked after the extraction.
Don't click on this picture if blood bothers you! Often these sockets are
sutured in order to keep food out and allow the gum line to heal faster.
This next picture shows the dog in the actual procedure and having the rest of
the teeth cleaned.
As we clean the teeth we keep track of what is present in the mouth on
this type of dental record.
This allows us to remember what we have done to the mouth in the past and helps
keep track of serious problems for the future treatments which may be
required. We always inspect each tooth during a dentistry and then we
clean the teeth with an ultrasonic dental scaler.
The gum lines are probed and the health of each tooth is assured prior to
polishing to remove microscopic particulates. Finally, the technicians
apply a fluoride treatment to kill bacteria for many months. We want
these teeth to stay healthy!