Cat Teeth Cleaning, Libertyville IL, Gurnee IL, Grayslake IL, Mundelein IL

Comments: ( http://www.LibertyvilleCatVet.com ) Our Cat Dental Care Now May Prevent Costly Dental Disease Later. Hi. I am Dr. Rebecca Schmidt of Northern Illinois Cat Clinic in Libertyville, Illinois. I am here today to talk with you about dental disease and the cat. Cats actually get dental disease. A lot of people don't even realize that. We see many cats with severe dental disease and the owners do not realize that their cats need some type of dental care routine. Without proper dental care, the cats could develop severe infections. We are going to show you a picture of a normal dentition of a cat. This is a cat skull. They have very long canine teeth here. These are the little incisors in the front and in the back are the molars and pre-molars. So, these are the number of teeth that a normal, healthy cat should have. They should be nice and clean. Usually, around 1 year of age cats begin to develop plaque and tartar on their teeth. Our Cat Dental Care Removes Plaque and Tartar. Plaque is a gummy fuzzy stuff that people get in their teeth also. Plaque has bacteria and it comes from food. It gradually turns into tartar and adhere tightly to the tooth. Eventually, that tartar can try to push up under the gum line and then bacteria get up into the gum line and cause gingivitis. So, cats start collecting tartar at around 1 year of age and we at Northern Illinois Cat Clinic recommend an annual exam, at least for all of our cats. When we do an annual exam we look at many things. Our Cat Dental Care Looks For Broken Teeth. You know, cats can even break their teeth while doing that elephant run, galloping and running into something. The canine tooth can be broken also while running and playing. We find this out while doing the exam. If there is a broken tooth, sometimes it will break into the pulp cavity causing a lot of pain and people are not even aware that their cats are having severe pain. So we find broken teeth, evidence of dental disease, tartar and gingivitis and all these need to be taken care of before they turn into more things. Our Cat Dental Care Detects Hidden Resorptive Lesions. Cats also tend to have quite a painful condition called resorptive lesion. It is not completely understood how that occurs; but, this is what it looks like. The tooth on the left is normal. The red stuff on the gum to the right is resorptive lesion. This red stuff is really inflamed gum tissue and is trying to cover a hole in that tooth. Resorptive lesion is actually a hole in a tooth. It is not a cavity. A cavity is a soft spot in people's teeth but not cats. Cats do not have cavities. So, resorptive lesion is a hole in the tooth. Some process in the mouth and the cat's bones cause the enamel to be reabsorbed into the bone, somehow resulting into a hole. This condition is very painful due to exposed nerve tissue and blood supply. The body is trying very hard to cover up the hole with gum tissue that is not normal tissue so that it bleeds easily and is very painful to the touch. Cats are very stoic. They tend to hide disease very well. They may have these painful lesions and people do not even know it. They continue to eat even though the lesions are in their mouth. When cats eat, they do not chew their food like people do. They use their teeth like scissors to cut through muscle and bone. They do not grind their food like we do so they don't even use their teeth often to eat the food that we give to them. They could swallow little pieces of dried food without chewing so they have very little discomfort even with these holes; but, these teeth ache and could be very painful when touched. This can be found during the physical exam and can be corrected. A tooth with a hole like this cannot be saved. It cannot be filled adequately so it has to be extracted. Our Cat Dental Care Uses The Latest Digital Radiography. Before extraction, we at Northern Illinois Cat Clinic use digital radiography for instantaneous x-ray results to help us perform a successful extraction. Here is an example of an x-ray. This is an x-ray of the tooth. This is the crown and this is where the roots are supposed to be. This is one of those resorptive lesions. Most of this crown is being reabsorbed. Here's a little bit of normal crown at the tip but most of it is being reabsorbed and goes right into the roots or some people feel it goes from the roots up into the crown; but, either way the crown is reabsorbed and actually turns to bone. This weakens the tooth and the tooth will often break, again, before any one becomes aware of it. This is what it looks like afterwards. It does not break off in level with the bone, leaving some of the crown protruding above the bone. Request a quote and read the rest at http://nicc60048.vetinzip.com/dental/cat-dental-care-cat-teeth-cleaning/