Mal-occlusion

[fenshae]

I officially feel like a bad rat mommy now

I noticed today that Sweeney's got a mal-occlusion and one of his top teeth has grown down and seems to be jabbing his lower lip. I tried to get a good look, it's definitely swollen down there but doesn't seem abcessed totally, just swollen. The bottom tooth on the other side is overgrown, too. He seems to have lost some weight too so I don't think he's eating very well due to this.

I'm going to try to get him into the vet ASAP but this would have been SO much easier if I'd noticed BEFORE I spent all my money on Christmas presents I've got about $40 to my name right now and I'm not sure it'll cover much of anything. Is there anything I can do in the meantime? Can I trim the tooth with nailclippers? I've got some baytril left from Ripper that I think is still good, so I can start him on that, and some soft food.....any suggestions???

 

[Littlefizz]

Don't feel too bad, the same thing happened with my Penny :hugs:

You can use dog nail clippers for the bottom teeth and apparnetly another type of trimmers is required for the top teeth... But my vet uses dog nail clippers for both and it goes well every time. Try giving him some baby food because I'm sure his mouth is sore. I wouldn't try to trim to much, when I notice Penny's teeth are bad I'll trim a little bit off, enough to make her comfortable until I can get her to the vets for a full trim. I always have my friend help me because she squirms too much, you may want to try this too.

 

[jorats]

Don't feel bad... It's always the last thing I check on my rats. I should make a note to check teeth on a regular basis.

 

[fenshae]

Update on poor Sweeney (I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another with him).

I had the boyfriend help hold so I could trim his teeth and I think I pretty much got them, I'll have to check on them every few days now to see if they're getting ground down and if I'll have to keep trimming. I suspicion what happened is he fell (since he's tilty and occasionally bonazais off of things) and injured himself and it knocked his teeth out of alignment. Anyway, trimmed those down and I've been making him some soft food by mashing up a couple lab blocks with veggies and oatmeal. He's loving that! I also put him on baytril in case his lip gets infected, I still had pretty much a full round from Ripper. I couldn't find an expiration date on it, does anybody know how long the shelf-life for it would be?

 

[jorats]

Is the Baytril liquid form mixed already? pink or colored other than clear?

 

[fenshae]

It's clear liquid mixed, in a dark bottle that's been kept at slightly under room temp.

 

[jorats]

If it's clear, I would think it's the yucky bitter injectible baytril. If so, it has a very long shelf life.
If it's mixed with a sugar mixture then it's got maybe 3 to 4 weeks shelf life.

 

[fenshae]

Apparently it must taste OK, everybody has loved taking it It was prescribed to be given orally, but it's definitely clear, not the pink like I'm used to seeing.

 

[jorats]

If they love it, then it's been mixed with sugar syrup so I'd say no more than 4 weeks.

 

[MumsyRat]

Now that you have his teeth trimmed I would give him some apple sticks or something to help keep those pesky chompers from growing too far again.

 

[fenshae]

Good news! Guess who I found happily munching away on hard food this morning? :happydance: Even better, I took a look in his mouth and the swelling seems to have gone down and I can't find any open wounds/signs of infection -- looks like he maybe didn't even slice open his lip with that toofer, so he might escape a vet visit after all.

I'm still feeding him his mashed oatmeal-veggies-lab block with his dinner (after he gets first dibs, I go ahead and let the others in on it, it's a real hit around the house lol) to see if I can get his weight up a bit. But he's a ton more energetic and back to being his goofy tilty self.

 

[jennifervb]

Good news! Guess who I found happily munching away on hard food this morning? :happydance: Even better, I took a look in his mouth and the swelling seems to have gone down and I can't find any open wounds/signs of infection -- looks like he maybe didn't even slice open his lip with that toofer, so he might escape a vet visit after all.

I'm still feeding him his mashed oatmeal-veggies-lab block with his dinner (after he gets first dibs, I go ahead and let the others in on it, it's a real hit around the house lol) to see if I can get his weight up a bit. But he's a ton more energetic and back to being his goofy tilty self.

Great news!!! Poor, little, Sweeney. :hugs:

Be extremely careful with malocclusion. It was responsible for killing one of my boys in 2007.

Jerry had other issues as well, but there is nothing like having the upper incisor stab through the lower lip (that healed up pretty well) and not even a month later (on the day of his recheck) to come home and find him lying comatose because the lower incisor had gone haywire and stabbed up into his brain.

My little man had to be euthanized. :tearful:

Since Jerry's death... I pay very close attention to little teeth.... Buddy doesn't like it but hey... tough love. :cheeky:

 

[fenshae]

Oh jeez I can't even imagine what that must have been like. *shudder* yeah, I'm checking compulsively now. After this little episode I'm definitely going to start making regular tooth checks part of my routine.