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When to do surgery for dental spurs.

daphnephoebe

daphnephoebe

Wise Old Thumper
I'm looking for peoples opinions & ideas as I keep finding god knows what info everywhere & all my vet friends have different opinions too.

So far the majority of my vet friends agree that correcting dental spurs before they actual start to cause problems can in fact make it worse.

I hope I can explain this well enough:

e.g. if the dental spurs are small & not really causing issues but you go ahead and do surgery on them anyway. The angle could be cut wrong and make the teeth grow back at a worse angle making the problem worse.

I hope this makes sense and I appreciate your opinions.
 
Every time one of our buns goes to the vets we get told they have spurs on their teeth. However, we never opt to have them filed down unless it is absolutely necessary. For example, for about the last 3/4 years we were told Cleo had spurs on her teeth, earlier this year she slowed down eating her nuggets and even stopped eating them completely but was still happily munching on the hay. We got her checked and the vets said it was the spurs on her teeth so at this point she had a dental.

Harley has had two dentals, both have been done when he stops eating we give him the medications, they kick in but then when they wear off, he stops eating again.

I think it does depend a lot on the rabbit and what signs/symptoms they are showing.Personally I don't like putting them under GA unless is it absolutely necessary.
 
Beano has had her spurs burred twice now, she went almost a year in between. I have them done when they start causing her pain, she stops eating all her pellets so I monitor and check for no other symptoms then she will start licking the walls and floor and turn down other food.
 
daphnephoebe said:
I'm looking for peoples opinions & ideas as I keep finding god knows what info everywhere & all my vet friends have different opinions too.

So far the majority of my vet friends agree that correcting dental spurs before they actual start to cause problems can in fact make it worse.

I hope I can explain this well enough:

e.g. if the dental spurs are small & not really causing issues but you go ahead and do surgery on them anyway. The angle could be cut wrong and make the teeth grow back at a worse angle making the problem worse.

I hope this makes sense and I appreciate your opinions.
Click to expand...

Sometimes a less Rabbit Savvy Vet can mistake the normal slant of the molar crowns as being dental spurs. So in that case correcting a 'problem' that is not actually a problem could create a problem.....if you see what I mean !

There's no point in just removing spurs as it is actually elongation of the crowns that causes the problems and simply removing the sharp points without coronal reduction to achieve a normal occlusal pattern will not help in the longterm.

This is an excellent article about Rabbit Dentistry

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Dental_diseases/Differential/Rabbit_dentistry.pdf
 
Frances Harcourt Brown - a now retired specialist vet in Harrogate - had a particular interest in rabbit teeth, and it's well worthwhile researching her stuff regarding rabbit teeth.

Here's a photo of a wild rabbit's teeth, showing the healthy relationship between the top and bottom teeth. It's quite surprising really that some vets take the teeth down to the gums still, and also level off the crowns, when that's not at all how the cheek teeth should lie to be in perfect working order!

https://www.harcourt-brown.co.uk/me...ationship-of-upper-and-lower-cheek-teeth/view

https://www.harcourt-brown.co.uk/media/anatomy/dentition/normal-occlusion-lateral-view/view
 
This is so interesting to me because we've been told by our local vets that Sylar needs a dental because he has small spurs on his teeth. They don't seem to be bothering him though, he's still eating hay, pellets and greens. We were planning on getting him booked in at some point soon but he seems absolutely fine... but I don't want to leave it too long until he's not ok and has stopped eating.
I'll be following this thread with interest :)
 
Thanks for that info MM - very interesting stuff. :)

Roxyroller - Daphne has had dental spurs since she was born. She's now just over a year and still hasn't had any surgery as they don't affect her. I'll have them treated once they appear to slow her eating down, or cause any sores (I monitor them at home myself, and the vets check anytime they're taken in for a vaccine etc) but until that point its just a case of enjoying her. (They offered to treat them while she was being spayed at 4 months and I refused as they were small).
 
Last edited:
roxyroller88 said:
This is so interesting to me because we've been told by our local vets that Sylar needs a dental because he has small spurs on his teeth. They don't seem to be bothering him though, he's still eating hay, pellets and greens. We were planning on getting him booked in at some point soon but he seems absolutely fine... but I don't want to leave it too long until he's not ok and has stopped eating.
I'll be following this thread with interest :)
Click to expand...

This is what problematic spurs look like in comparison to normal molar crowns

 
My vet took one look at Aboleth's teeth when she went for her first checkup with us and said she'd got a hook, but there was no problem he could see and proceeded to ask me how her eating was. When I replied something along the lines of a starved gannet, he said we should just leave it until she went off 'hard' type food. It was exactly the same this year, hadn't grown, hadn't shrunk, still no problems so we'd rather keep her going without intervention as long as possible. Given that ours get a lot of forage, pretty much as soon as she's shying off pellets she'll be straight down the vets with that as the primary investigation.
 
daphnephoebe said:
Thanks for that info MM - very interesting stuff. :)

Roxyroller - Daphne has had dental spurs since she was born. She's now just over a year and still hasn't had any surgery as they don't affect her. I'll have them treated once they appear to slow her eating down, or cause any sores (I monitor them at home myself, and the vets check anytime they're taken in for a vaccine etc) but until that point its just a case of enjoying her. (They offered to treat them while she was being spayed at 4 months and I refused as they were small).
Click to expand...

Very welcome :thumb:
 
oh wow this is really interesting, i didn't know a lot of this. years ago my bun timmy seemed to have spurs as when he ate his teeth against the hay made a weird noise and he washaving a more difficult time eating. i just kept an eye and his appetite was never affected and he still ate his pellets so i decided it was best to let him grind down his spurs himself if poss rather than go through a ga. haven't had any issues since,probably because i got him to be a better hay eater around that time.
 
William said:
oh wow this is really interesting, i didn't know a lot of this. years ago my bun timmy seemed to have spurs as when he ate his teeth against the hay made a weird noise and he washaving a more difficult time eating. i just kept an eye and his appetite was never affected and he still ate his pellets so i decided it was best to let him grind down his spurs himself if poss rather than go through a ga. haven't had any issues since,probably because i got him to be a better hay eater around that time.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean .. I've heard that weird noise you mention, and sometimes it's the rabbit sorting out their own teeth! I know it for a fact as I've had their teeth checked when it happened on many occasions and there was nothing to be done - no dental! :D
 
MightyMax said:
I know what you mean .. I've heard that weird noise you mention, and sometimes it's the rabbit sorting out their own teeth! I know it for a fact as I've had their teeth checked when it happened on many occasions and there was nothing to be done - no dental! :D
Click to expand...
I hope that's what mine are doing! They make some proper weird grindy noises sometimes, but it sounds similar to when I'm fiddling with my teeth (when I've pips in my molars etc.)! I've never heard a 'pain' grind so I am never sure which way to take it so have to look holistically :) Useful to know, thankyou MM and William :)
 
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