Degu still drooling one week after dental work

[yasmin]

My 4.5 year old degu, Azure, had a large spur growing from her back molar removed back in December. It was pinning her tongue down at the time (lingual malocclusion). I know that this can recur so when she began drooling a few weeks back I made an appointment with her vet to have her teeth checked again.

Unfortunately, the amazing vet that did the work in December decided to leave the office where he was at (and I've been unable to track him down) so I made an appointment with a different vet at a different office. He ended up removing a couple of tiny spurs from her molars. That was a week ago. Right after, she was in pretty poor shape: her eyes and nose dripping and her jaw looking very sore indeed. It's been one week and, though the dripping from her eyes and nose have stopped and it looks like her jaw is back to normal (looks as if, I'm not certain it is), she is still drooling a bit and is having trouble eating/holding onto certain foods.

Is this normal? When the original vet did it, she recovered much more quickly.

[deguconvert]

That doesn't sound good to me, and is distressing. Can't help but wonder why the difference between treatments/vets? Also wondering why there is difficulty in tracking down the one you liked. I suppose there if there were issues with that vet, the office he worked from might be reluctant to disclose anything . . . but . . . I wonder if you could press them a little aggressively for further information? Certainly your experience with him was good, so they don't have any kind of bad repercussions to anticipate from you. Having said that though, I am one that finds it difficult to "press aggressively" unless it is on the behalf of someone ELSE, and not me. When it is about me, I cave and let it be. It sure would be great for you if he were still in the Ottawa area and treating animals in a practice there.

As for her less than stellar recovery . . . I suppose it could depend on the anesthetics used the first time and then the second time . . . were they the same or different? Did the first guy use gas, and then second guy use injection? This information you should be able to obtain by calling each veterinary center and asking for the names of the anesthetics, I would think. Degus have a thinner jaw density than do rats and other degus . . . so was the second vet less aware and less gentle maybe? When you describe her as having difficulty eating/holding onto certain foods . . . are you observing weakness of grip do you think, or is it all to do with her mouth and her ability to gnaw/chew her foods?

[yasmin]

When I got home last night she wasn't drooling and this morning she still wasn't drooling so hopefully it's uphill from here on. She still is very selective at what she eats but that's normal for her. The grip issue is a possibility – it does look like she drops the food. Maybe she's dropping food she doesn't like – she is quite finicky. She managed to eat a pumpkin seed – that's a good sign. (Thought I'd tempt her with something challenging that I know she can't resist.)

I had checked about the anesthetics before taking her in and they assured me that they use gas. I think that what you said about degus having thinner jaw density is more likely the issue – I don't think this vet has had much experience with dealing with degu teeth and that maybe he was less adept at dealing with it.

As for my previous vet, I did try and connect with him via LinkedIn but he did not reply. But there is hope. The owner of the pet store I go to has kids and one of his sons goes to school with this vet's son. He is going to see if his son can find out what's happening with his father (not just for me but also because he's the vet that they refer their exotics customers to). If this lead doesn't pan out, I will call Crownpoint again to see if they will tell me more. I know what you mean about 'pressing aggressively' – I'm quite useless at that. Maybe I can muster up the courage for Azure's sake.

Thanks, deguconvert.

[moletteuk]

Hope she continues to improve.

[deguconvert]

I hope she continues improving as well. It is cheering to hear that there seems to be no more drooling!!

[yasmin]

I think she is doing better! No drool last night and no drool this morning. Thanks for your support! ;D

[moletteuk]

Great Do you think it was just some bruising then?

[luna1]

Hi yasmin,

I really hope that she has continued to recover.

I had a similar situation only last month, one of my girls had a left lower molar problem that was rasped , yet she still continued to drool and had trouble eating. I took her staight back and after X-Ray it turned out to be a lower molar root abscess that was causing the problem.

She was on high dose A/B's for 10 days to try and control it but if this didn't work then she would have had to have extensive work done on it. The molars are very sensitive to surgery and, in Munchkins case, if we had to have this one removed it would have been very dangerous as some back molars are attached to major artery veins that run up from the bottom jaws into the ears.

Thankfully, in Munch's case the Antibitotic worked but if it hadn't then we would have had to wait until the infection/abscess loosened the molar roots (much safer rather than surgically forcing them) so that the tooth would have come out easily and then the hole that the tooth had left would have been open to infection removal. This would have been the safest way to deal with it rather than forcing out the roots and causing unnecessary risk.