Dental Work Advice Needed (FORLs)

Some good news and bad news.

The good news is I took Zulu to the new vet last night and had a much better experience than with his old vet. For one, they really did a much more thorough job examining Zulu. For two, they LOVED the spreadsheet and were really impressed with Zulu's progress.

The bad news is that Zulu has feline tooth resorption, which is apparently pretty painful. Zulu is a full-fledged member of the clean plate club and has never shown any signs of having difficulty or pain while eating, so I was definitely surprised. So he will need to have dental work done. Nothing scheduled yet - the new vet wanted to do a urine culture to rule out any UTIs before acting on the tooth issues (the old vet had found bacteria in his urine sample but never did a culture; like so many other things, they "brushed it off").

My question for anyone who has had a diabetic cat go through dental surgery is, what should I expect? Will his BGs skyrocket (he's been doing so good lately!)? Are there any medications I should ask the vet to avoid? Recovery time for FORLs?

 

My cat has tooth reabsorbtion too. I had no idea, but apparently she's missing a few in the back. She never showed signs of pain either. She had a tooth pulled and another filled. They gave her bupe afterwards for pain.

 

Noah has long term pain, all his teeth needed to come out but he won't survive the surgery. Our option was to give him transdermal BUPE (inside the ears) made at a compounding pharmacy. The oral BUPE was disgusting to him. Now he's a little drug addict but so what, he's still here. Glad you found another vet, cats and dogs will put up with a lot of pain and never show it.

 

as long as he doesn't start a life of crime to get his fix.

 

Oh, I'm his enabler! Janet, everyone knows NJ is where organized crime started. That Janet Soprano, just wanted to poke a fork in her eye!

 

Did you notice any changes in her BG numbers from the bupe? Just want to know what to expect. The vet said a couple of his were already missing, too. Poor guy can't catch a break.

 

Cc was in remission at the time. About a month after the extraction she came out of remission, but I don't think it was related to the bupe at all.

 

I'm a little late, but Spicoli has has 7 extractions over the past 2 years due to FORLs. He was put on antibiotics and Bupe afterwards. Depending on how many are to be revmoed and their location, recovery may take more/less time. Either way his appetite was back the same night and seemed to be in less and less pain every day. I'd say the last time we had 5 out in a day, it took 3-4 days for him to show no outward signs of discomfort - but ECID.

As far as BG numbers, he didn't skyrocket. Was pretty much about the same, maybe a little higher probably due to pain. But since we've had that fixed his numbers have started to fall. If he has any underlying conditions like us, I might would ask about the antibiotics- what they plan on giving him or if there's something better for a diabetic. We've had instances where we had 2 back to back ear infections (one bacterial one yeast) and both medications contained small amounts of steroids. Those were no good and caused BG spikes.

Don't worry about the missing teeth It's a big deal to us as humans but our cats do perfectly fine missing some (or all). We've lost a grand total of 8-9 and Spicoli has no problem gobbling down wet food or kibble.

 

Thanks, W.K.! I had a voicemail tonight that his urine culture was negative, so I guess we're good to move forward with the dental work. His numbers have been getting progressively better these past few weeks, so it's good to hear that the dental shouldn't throw him completely off track.

 

I have odontophobia big time, someone's big hairy hand in my mouth. I need valium just for a cleaning. My insurance pays for nitrous oxide which is fantastic. An hour passes by in 5 minutes and when the gas comes off you can drive home 5 minutes later. Zulu has more guts than I do! Good luck Zulu!

I also have agriphobia (fear of farmers being outside) and sometimes Panophobia. Well that's what my therapist said. Uhm, my cat therapist!