Why Dental Xray is Important!!

When educating my clients about dentistry, I find it difficult to sometimes convey just how important it really is  to take xrays of your pet's mouth.  In ideal situations, a set of full mouth xrays should be taken during even a routine dental cleaning.  Why???  Because what we see above the gumline often does not match what we see below the gumline.

OK, so what the heck does THAT mean?

We cleaned the teeth of one of the cutest dog's ever, named Ipod.  'Pod, as we like to call her, is a tiny little doggy owned by Ruthanne, one of our stellar registered veterinary technicians.  Ruth cleans 'Pod's teeth every year.  Yep, we practice what we preach at Animal Care Hospital.  My own dog, Vinnie, just had HIS teeth cleaned last week.

Because Ruthanne takes such good care of her pets, Ipod's teeth were in pretty good shape.  But, she is older - she's 9 years old - so we wanted to use our new dental xray unit and do a full set of xrays on her mouth.

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit but guess what????

We found a problem that we didn't even know was there.

See, Ipod has tiny little teeth.   You can barely even see some of them - but the gums are healthy and the teeth look pretty good from the outside.   Most people would say her teeth were fine and she didn't have any problems.    Here's a shot of her teeth:

Because we never really had the capability for doing full mouth xrays before, we didn't realize that 'Pod had an abnormal tooth.  After all, they looked just fine!  But here is an xray of the teeth you see above:

Can you see how the tooth with the arrow looks different than the other teeth???  It's not a healthy tooth and needed to be extracted, which we did.  This is actually a retained baby tooth, and the adult tooth that was supposed to grow in its place, did not exist.  So the baby tooth never fell out, and was likely a source of pain for Ipod.  These retained teeth are brittle and ABNORMAL, are PAINFUL and can ABSCESS.  You wouldn't want to leave something like that in your pet's mouth would you?? 

After we removed this tooth and her mouth healed, Ruthanne was amazed at how much better Ipod felt!   BAD TEETH CAUSE PAIN AND SUFFERING FOR OUR PETS! 

 So when exactly should we be taking oral xrays?

- When a tooth is mobile (movable)
-  When the gums bleed with or without probing with a dental instrument
-  When a tooth is broken
-  When a tooth is discolored (known as pulpitis)
-  When there is furcation exposure (periodontal disease)
-  When teeth are missing without explanation
-  When we find feline resorptive lesions (FORLs)
-  Prior to extraction and after extraction

When should we take a full mouth set of xrays?

-  When there is periodontal disease anywhere in the mouth
-  When FORLs are present
-  Broken teeth of unknown origin
-  To evaluate oral and/or facial swellings.



We do understand that proper dentistry can be costly for owners, but this is proof positive for why we make the recommendations for what we do.  It's proof positive for why non-anesthetic dentistry is not only a sham, but very very bad for your pets, and proof positive for why we believe 100% in appropriate dental care WITH ORAL XRAYS!!!

If you have questions, please give us a call and schedule a consult so we can discuss your pet's oral care in more detail.