Dottie was as good as gold waiting for her dental procedure under the care of our Dentistry, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Registrar Dr Hannah van Velzen.
Unfortunately, she chipped one of her mandibular canine teeth, so had a root canal performed and a mould was taken so a zirconium (natural coloured) crown could be made.
In addition to Dottie’s root canal, we incidentally found she was suffering from bilateral mandibular carnassial tooth malformation. This is because her bottom carnassials developed with an abnormal folded shape, resulting in their death early on in life and subsequent disease development. These teeth had advanced periodontal disease, severe inflammation of the bone around the roots, and even a draining abscess.
Poor Dottie would have been very uncomfortable with these teeth, which were easily missed when checking her mouth whilst she was awake, because they were tucked away neatly behind her upper carnassials. This is a great example of why we always perform a detailed oral exam and x-ray images for every dental patient under general anaesthesia, instead of focusing on the sole problem they present with.
Dr Hannah van Velzen removed these two problematic teeth, and a few weeks later, Dottie returned to have her zirconium crowns fitted.
Services used in this story
Fitzpatrick Referrals is dedicated to the prevention and treatment of orthopaedic, neurological and dental diseases in small animals.
