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Rabbit possibly having all teeth removed

Leytia

New Kit
Hi all, I am new to the forum so not sure if this is the right section, but I have a dilema which I could do with some advice from some people.

My rabbit Lily has always had bad dental problems, at first we thought it was just her front teeth that were the problem and we have been getting them clipped every 3-4 weeks with the intention of getting them completely removed as reccommended by our vet. Lily has been really under the weather these past few days so today I took her back to the vets to see if we could figure out what was wrong. After further inspection, it turns out that all of her back teeth are mis aligned and all very sharp and pointy as she is unable to wear them down, this was causing Lily a lot of discomdort. The vet tried to wear some of them down but Lily was getting way to distressed so it couldnt be done without anesthetic, so she is now booked in to get them done tomorrow, the problem is that if it doesnt permenantly correct the problem, she will have to have this procedure done every 5 weeks which is going to be totally inapprapriate for Lily as I know anesthetic has its risks, and putting her under that every 5 weeks will be way to stressful, so the vet has said the other option is to have all of her teeth completely removed, but before doing this, I would really like some opinions, how would she cope with no teeth atall? would she still have a good quality of life? what things would I need to do or change?

I am sorry this is a bit of a ramble, I have just been worried sick all day and getting upset as I am scared I might have to have her put to sleep if she is unable to cope without teeth. I love her to bits and dont want anything to happen to her, but if her quality of life is affected, I wouldnt and couldnt leave her to suffer.

Any advice and guidance is greatly appreciated.

Lauren
 
Hi welcome to the forum :wave:

Has your vet advised you on diet at all? How much hay does your bunny get?
 
Thanks :)

She always has plenty of hay supplied and the vet has just given me a satchet of liquid food to give her while its to painful for her to eat.
 
Thanks :)

She always has plenty of hay supplied and the vet has just given me a satchet of liquid food to give her while its to painful for her to eat.

This is good :wave: does she eat very much of it? It will really help her teeth. Is she on pellets or muesli?
 
Hi all, I am new to the forum so not sure if this is the right section, but I have a dilema which I could do with some advice from some people.

My rabbit Lily has always had bad dental problems, at first we thought it was just her front teeth that were the problem and we have been getting them clipped every 3-4 weeks with the intention of getting them completely removed as reccommended by our vet. Lily has been really under the weather these past few days so today I took her back to the vets to see if we could figure out what was wrong. After further inspection, it turns out that all of her back teeth are mis aligned and all very sharp and pointy as she is unable to wear them down, this was causing Lily a lot of discomdort. The vet tried to wear some of them down but Lily was getting way to distressed so it couldnt be done without anesthetic, so she is now booked in to get them done tomorrow, the problem is that if it doesnt permenantly correct the problem, she will have to have this procedure done every 5 weeks which is going to be totally inapprapriate for Lily as I know anesthetic has its risks, and putting her under that every 5 weeks will be way to stressful, so the vet has said the other option is to have all of her teeth completely removed, but before doing this, I would really like some opinions, how would she cope with no teeth atall? would she still have a good quality of life? what things would I need to do or change?

I am sorry this is a bit of a ramble, I have just been worried sick all day and getting upset as I am scared I might have to have her put to sleep if she is unable to cope without teeth. I love her to bits and dont want anything to happen to her, but if her quality of life is affected, I wouldnt and couldnt leave her to suffer.

Any advice and guidance is greatly appreciated.

Lauren

Eek! Teeth clipping is not recommended for many reasons - it damages the tooth, puts undue pressure on the roots and can open the tooth up to infection from fissures that result.
I personally don't agree with conscious molar dentals either for several other different reasons (although some people do have this procedure done).
If any dental is to be performed it should be burring not clipping - this included incisors.

I would be VERY concerned about all teeth being removed :shock: Incisors - yes, this is straightforward and common to have incisor extraction. Full molar extraction I would say no unless there really is no choice, mainly because to remove the molars there is a huge risk to shattering the jaw bone itself and multiple infection risks to the bone following extraction. That I personally feel would be too much for a rabbit - having all the molars out. Some elderly buns have crumbling jaw bones and teeth that just fall out - fair enough, but full on molar extraction is a huge deal and not one to be taken lightly and certainly not without back up and confirmation from an exotics vet.

It is quite feasible for bun to undergo dentals every 5 weeks - many rabbits on here have this procedure done - some with GA's and some without. I personally would opt for GA each time, if done in experienced hands there should be no increased risk.
Corrective burring can also reduce the need for further dentals - especially if the crowns are burred back to gum line (this will need strong pain relief for several days afterwards each time). By reducing the crowns drastically you can slow the rate of root disruption.
I would not venture any further without full Xray diagnostics of head and jaw to see exactly what is going on and a second opinion from an exotics vet. :wave:
 
She is on pellets, but the problem isnt food, its because her teeth are mis aligned so food does not wear the teeth down which is why they are going to have to be removed, hopefully having just the front ones removed will sort the problem of the back ones out, but i'm not convinced :(
 
I've had a similar problem with one of my bunnies, only not quite so seriously. Daphne's always had teeth problems. Since I got her, she went in for dentals every 4/5 months. Her incisors started getting really bad at the end of last year so she had them removed. She's had no problems with her back teeth since, even though several of them are a bit wonky. The vet says this is because her front teeth, even when they didn't look too bad, were always growing at just enough of an angle to stop her closing her mouth completely.

One of her incisors snapped at the root when removed and then slowly grew back over quite some time. She had this one tooth burred back twice and in the end she went in to have it pulled again. When she'd first at them out at the beginning of this year, she'd had her molars burred too and I was told they were in a bad way. On removing her one tooth that grew back, almost seven months later, her molars needed no burring at all. :)

I think I might be rambling a bit... I can't seem to put a sentance together today! :lol: Basically, my point is, try insicor removal before doing anything more drastic. It may just be enough to sort her back teeth out a bit as well. :wave:
 
I agree totally with Pretty Lupin's comments.

My own 5 year old bun's teeth don't meet properly, & he gets sharp spikes on the tongue side of his molars. He has a GA & the teeth are burred down to gum line. He's had this done every 4 weeks for nearly 2 years.
He was a bit stressed at 1st. but takes it completely in his stride now. Buns are bright enough to quickly learn that they feel much better afterwards.

Thumper is a worst case scenario because he also has a serious bowel condition. So many buns on here improve over time with a good diet & regular dentals, despite advanced dental disease.
Please don't have all your rabbit's teeth extracted. I also doubt whether your bun could withstand it.

I would ask your vet for a referral to a bunny specialist vet. for a 2nd. opinion. Anaesthetic risks are much much lower where vets cater specifically for rabbits.
 
whereabouts are you? :wave: perhaps we could suggest a bunny savvy local vet? I agree with prettylupin - I knew clipping teeth was bad but couldn't remember what they are meant to do instead :oops:
 
Thank you for all your feed back, I wasn't diving into anything drastic I just wanted to get some opinions :) Her front teeth are going to be removed tomorrow so I am hoping it will sort her back teeth out aswell, they are also going to be burred. I was just wondering if it actually was possible for a rabbit to have all its teeth removed, I was looking on a worse case scenario, I always look on the negative side, but I am sure she will be ok :)

I live in Coventry, I don't think there are any vets that paticularly specialise in small animals here, but if anyone knows of one I would love to know for future reference. Once again thanks for all your replies, I will keep you updated once I know more of the situation tomorrow :)
 
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Unfortunately I don't know any exotic vets Coventry way. There is a rabbit dental specialist in Manchester - David Crossley but obviously too far away.

I agree with the other comments re. diet. My bun has a twisted jaw and although he's never needed incisor extraction, he used to have to have his incisors burred a few times when we adopted him. A very high hay diet (I don't feed pellets at all but remember that a lot of dental buns may struggle with hay even though it is desperately what they need) and careful burring has meant he has never needed another incisor burr for nearly 3 years now. :D

He does have molar spurs also but these have not only been maintained but in fact IMPROVED with his high hay diet. :)
 
Grimlock has this problem. He has no front teeth as well. I soak his pellets in water when it's too painful for him to eat, but eating dry food and lots of hay helps the teeth a little bit.

He still has a very happy life. :)

Good luck!
 
I have had similar problems with my rabbit. He has a misaligned jaw and it doesn't matter what he eats, his back teeth and spurs still grow back. Peter's problem is that his spurs grow into his tongue. The first dental he ever had only lasted two weeks and he had to have another dental. Currently we are on week 6 but are waiting for the signs because we know that any day soon he will need another dental.

I am currently on my third vet who is great. However, a rabbit specialist (the second vet I went to see) suggested that Peter's prognosis was not good because he teeth and spurs grew so fast and also said that you can't take all of a rabbits teeth out because that would invlove major surgery. (believe me, if it was possible, I would have had Peter done). The surgery alone could kill the rabbit and it wouldn't really have much quality of life. He did say the front teeth can be easily removed though. ;)

My current vet rang a rabbit specialist in Swindon and they said that the rabbits teeth could be filed down to the gum line. We had this done last time and are currently on week 6! However, Peter did take a full week to recover and had to be medicated several times a day, syringe fed, injected with fluids, daily visits to the vet and be hospitalised for a day. I am hoping the next dental will be alot easier because we know that the spurs are growing back (he had another check up today) and as soon as his eating slows down I am booking him in. :)

Good luck. :)
 
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