Tuffy had his annual checkup. The vet was impressed with my care regarding diabeties. She was happy that he was consistent with last year, around the same weight. However, he does have a heart murmur which worries me a little. we're monitoring it for now but we may have to see a cardiologist and that's probably going to be expensive. Is anyone else familiar with dealing with a cat with heart issues? Another concern is he has calculus and he needs a cleaning. The vet wants to put that on the back burner, but I know it's important. What do people do for their cats teeth?
It's pretty hard to get a cat well regulated with problem teeth. If the heart murmur isn't a barrier, I would recommend getting the dental cleaning taken care of as soon as you can. If the heart is the reason the vet wants to hold off on the dental, then we can help you work on dosing around it, but many cats get better numbers after their teeth are cleaned and any extractions are taken care of.
See, that's what I said. I know it directly effects the numbers. I am going to call the cardiologist and see the price and such. The vet wants to get a clearance from the cardiologist. However, I'm a dental assistant, and I have the instruments to clean my cats teeth. I'm going to try and take car of it myself if I can. What do people use to help keep their cats teeth clean.?
I'm big on dental care. It has such impact on their health. A proper dental cleaning needs to be done under anesthesia by a vet professional.
There may also be teeth that need to be extracted that you can't see unless you do x-rays. I would definitely explore the route of consulting a cardiologist or finding a vet that has had experience working with cats with heart murmurs. In my short term experience as a vet assistant, we have done dentals on dogs with heart murmurs before. They usually have had one or two heart ultrasounds beforehand and the vet checks the U/S before doing the dental. Then we just take extra care while the patient is under anesthesia.
Which I am all for getting a cleaning done by a vet, but they won't do it for me. I'm calling the cardiologist about when I can get in, plus the price. I was just thinking in the meantime I can remove some tarter before it gets worse. He's always had the heart murmur, but it was a 1pt in November, now it's a 3 pt.
I took my 18 year old cat to a big fancy hospital and had a cardiologist appointment at 9:30am with an echocardiogram done, and then the veterinary specialist did the dental at 10:00am.
Well, it's in Portland, which is an 1 1/2 away. It would be awesome if they did it there! I will ask when I call! One of my concerns is the price. I can't afford a crazy amount of money, as is I try my hardest to give my animals what they need. I'm afraid if he needs way more how can I afford it?
