Updates!! #diabeticcats

Well... next cat (Pippin) was up for a teeth cleaning.  I had been putting it off for a couple years. Merry went in a few years ago and it cost soooo much money.  So I had to wait.  I wish cat teeth cleanings weren't so expensive, maybe more people would do it. Pippin's teeth aren't as bad as Merry's.  Even though diabetes can ruin their teeth Pippin's has stayed pretty good.  In Pippin's 12 years of life I've had his teeth cleaned 5 times. I do think it's well worth it.  We had a cat growing up who passed away because an infection that went from his teeth to his liver.  Plus... have you ever had tooth pain???  Wowsers.  A cat can't even tell you if they have pain so it's pretty important to get their teeth cleaned.  Pippin did have two teeth pulled.  Both had Resorptive Lesion. I had no idea what this was so I had to look it up.  Apparently.. this is where cells will absorb the tooth into the gum until eventually the tooth is gone!   WHAT THE!  It is supposed to be quite painful.  Just goes to show why it is even more important for you to clean your cats teeth.

Merry has been limping a lot, so I contacted the vet office and told them.  I asked if we could try a different medicine to treat it.  My old vet had put him on Torbugesie which I think he's been on now for about 1 1/2 years.  He doesn't seem to be doing great on it.  So now we are trying Metacam (anti-inflammatory) and Tramadol for pain.  I really hope we get him able to not limp as much.  He is still mobile though, gets around the house.  Can get to his food and water.  We noticed he's had a few issues with his bladder (Merry is supposed to be about 15 1/2 years old).  He was sleeping on the couch recently and must've been so comfy didn't bother to get up to pee.  So there was pee on the couch.  We built a litter box cover and moved one of the litter boxes up to the living room which seems to be really helping him.  In my next post, I'm going to show you what it looks like.

My vet office is now going to switch vets.  So if you've read previous posts you would've read that my vet was let go... and ever since she left I haven't really had to see the owner of the vet office.  He's an older man and wanted to pass the vet office onto his niece (the vet who was let go).  Since that didn't happen the office has been up for sale.  On March 1st a new group is going to take over.  I am not sure if they will keep it a cat only veterinarian office or what.  One of my favorite vet techs (and current cat sitter) left before the new company takes over.  I am so sad.  It is hard to find a good vet and now everyone is leaving.  I hope the girl at the front desk doesn't leave, I interact with her a lot.  March 1st we'll see what happens.

How are your diabetic cats???

Teeth Cleaning Success

If you read the previous post on the blog you know we weren't able to clean Merry's teeth last week.  He wasn't able to go under because he couldn't breath on his own.  So this week my vet tried again using a different anesthesia.  It was successful this time. Though it turned out quite expensive.  When Merry went in the previous week my vet could tell he has a lose tooth, but that was all she could really see at the time.  When I picked him up he had like 8 teeth pulled!  I did have his teeth cleaned in May 2012 so I didn't think it had been that long and then 2 years before that.  He has never had teeth pulled before now.  I don't know how they got so bad.  She did say that when a cat is diabetic their teeth will go bad... but that bad~!!  He was under anesthesia for 50 minutes and so she didn't take xrays because he was under so long.  Merry gets sooooo moody at the vet.  I had to go in the back and move him into his carrier.

The vet did say she wants to see him in two weeks but she can't even get near him.  I asked her how she would look at his mouth and she said from a distance.  Well I am not going to pay $50 for her to stand away from him and say he looks good.  I have been feeding him wet food for the week, and of course he is on all kinds of medication.  I am going to start softening his diabetic dry food so he can eat that from now on.  I think with all those teeth gone it's going to be too hard for him to eat normal hard food.  His eyes also wigged out the night after his dental.  One eye was fully dilated and the other was not.   I googled this and of course this is a major sign of stroke.  Luckily my vet will email after hours if you email her so I emailed her right away! She did say this was a symptom of coming down off morphine.  But it was still very scary.

Be sure to get your cat's teeth cleaned. I had NO idea this is how bad his teeth were.  I would've never know he was in pain.  His breath did stink real bad so that's how I knew it was time.  Plus my vet had 10% off this month for dentals so I saved a lot of money there too. 

Yellow teeth are the ones removed

Mind Blown

Ok so my mind was blown today.  I went to the vet for Pippin and he has completely healed.  ummm.... I don't even know what happened?  We are thinking with Pippin that he stopped eating because of his tooth hurting.    Which THEN made all his organs just go out of control.  So we have stopped ALL meds on him and he has an appointment to get his teeth cleaned and Xrayed next week.  I am still a little ticked about this though since he did have his teeth cleaned 3 months ago.  I called them today and they did not take Xrays. ERRRRR

Merry of course still has diabetes and we still have to get his under control.  Happy day though about Pippin!!!