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A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my cat's teeth were kinda ooky looking.
I don't know a whole lot about cats, but I do know when teeth look weird. One looked rotten, or something.
Now, my cat's ALWAYS had bad breath. Not like cat breath...but like "UGH!" Even if he cleaned himself, he smelled awful. Been that way since he was a kitten.
Anyway, we kind of decided to find out what was up with his teeth, and sure enough, the vet said that the tooth looked bad, but he should definitely have his teeth cleaned, and if the tooth needed to come out, she would take care of that too.
For cats, teeth cleaning means anesthesia...which is stressful for any small pet, and doubly so for pet owners. Bad things happen when you anesthetize a pet, so it's not something you take lightly...but the vet was pretty serious about making sure Kuma's mouth was OK, so we said OK, and set up the appointment for the following weekend.
On Saturday morning, we toook Kuma in, and left him there for the day. Picked him up at 4pm...everything went well according to the vet.
She removed 5 of his remaining 9 teeth. For those not in vet school, cats have 16 teeth. 7 of them were already missing. The ones she removed were so decayed and covered in tartar, they were falling out.
The 4 teeth that were fine were the front four...his "smile."
When we took him home, he was really groggy...like couldn't stand without wobbling and his eyes were glazed and glassy. In six hours or so, he started to come around, moving a bit better, and just generally chilling. We gave him painkillers and antibiotics and cuddled him and such.
Today, he's bouncing around, seems really happy. Talking a lot, doesn't seem to be in any pain. We're feeding him soft food for a few days until his mouth heals...but he's eating fine and everything.
The breath thing was obviously related to his teeth. His breath is normal now...hardly noticable. He must have been in pain...although he didn't act it. Although it's pretty obvious I have no idea what a cat in pain acts like...or maybe it just didn't bother him that much.
Makes me feel kinda bad that his teeth hurt as long as it did without me knowing. But he's pretty happy and painfree now, I think.
If you have a cat, check his teeth. It's not easy, since cats aren't real good about letting you look inside their mouths.
Anyway, the surgery went fine, Kuma's fine, and he seems happier than he did before the cleaning and extractions. Which makes me happy. I like knowing that I made my cat happy again.
Posted by Glenn at May 8, 2006 03:16 PMHm, indeed. That might explain why he was such an angry little kitten, pushing appliances off of countertops. Poor kitten!
Bad breath is a classic indication of bad teeth. If he's had this problem for years now, it's likely that bacteria may have spread through his furry little body. Hopefully, your vet performed blood work to make sure he's healthy overall. If not, Kuma should have another date with the vet.
Better safe than sorry - and Kuma-less.
Posted by: -r at May 8, 2006 05:21 PMDude. That's awesome. Poor kitty. Makes you want to teach all your pets sign language or something. Is he going to have to eat smooshie food from now on, or are front teeth all a cat needs? meow.
Posted by: Adam HH at May 9, 2006 09:13 AMI feel bad too that I didn't figure this out about his teeth before... however, the odd thing is that he really has ALWAYS had this god awful breath. The breath, in fact, predates his adult teeth. In Hong Kong, I asked our vet about 'the stink' as it became to be known and the best explaination he could offer was that maybe the PH of Kuma's saliva was more acidic than normal...
So, who knows. But yes, Kuma seems... reinvigorated by being largely toothless. Perhaps a little excessively so. He is still very angry, and was biting us both again by the following morning.
Captain Insano shows no mercy. Even when you pull out all his teeth. Perhaps especially then.