Teeth Missing Premolar Tooth

[Tschannen14]

My 4 year old guinea pig recently had trouble eating and was loosing weight. We went to the vet and discovered his teeth were starting to overgrow and he was developing spurs on his bottom premolars. During the procedure to file his molars, one of his top premolars easily came out in fragments. The vet suspects the tooth was damaged and causing pain, hence his apprehension to eat.

After the filing and tooth fragment removal, we waited a month to see if the tooth would grow back, but it did not. We had him refiled to give him another month. It has been two months now and there is no sign of the tooth regrowing. The vet does not expect it to come in. We had him filed again so we can figure out what to do.

We would have to get him filed once a month to combat the overgrowth of the lower tooth for the remainder of his life, but financially we don't think that is an option long term. Neither of our guinea pig savvy vets have experience extracting a guinea pig tooth, and neither are comfortable performing the procedure. They consulted with the dental expert vet in our city, and they have also never extracted a guinea pig tooth.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar situation with their pig where a tooth fell out and never grew back. I'm trying to figure out if there are any other options and looking for advice. He usually has trouble eating for a week after the filing and week leading up to the filing. Typically involves some bloat, anorexia, and force feeding critical care. Guinea pigs spend a good portion of their time eating, and I'm concerned that spending half the pig's remaining life struggling to eat is not a very good quality of life.

Any advice or experience would be much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[grace&piggies]

If the tooth was extracted, would he be able to chew sufficiently to eat well independently or would he be reliant on assisted feeding?

 

[bpatters]

I've heard of a couple of pigs that have had tooth removal and recovered ok from it, but it's not a procedure that seems to have a very good success rate. Their jaw bones are pretty small and fragile, and working a healthy tooth out can easily break the jaw.

There's an excellent veterinary dentist, Dr. Loic Legendre, at this clinic: https://www.wcvds.ca/about-us/. He does consultations with other dentists. It might be worth while asking your dentist if he would consult with him and see what should be done.

I'm very sorry he's having these problems.