FME Recovery Time?

[daftcat75]

After nearly two years of battling with general vets over tooth resorption and tooth extractions, I finally took Krista to a board certified veterinary dentist. I told him, "make her toothless. Make this the last dental procedure she'll ever need." And he agreed with me. He showed me pictures and X-rays before the procedure which showed that she was having lip entrapment on her one remaining canine, occlusion where a couple of teeth were grinding against each other, resorption, and a botched extraction or two where the non-dentist vet had drilled out the teeth but left the roots. So with the "informed consent" discussion that this may not fix her hyporexia, I told him to proceed anyway since he's the only one willing to work on her mouth now. My regular vets refused to work with her remaining teeth and root tips.

Her procedure was on Wednesday. She was eating again readily three hours post op. She ate well on Wednesday and Thursday. But her eating started to slow again on Friday and Saturday. I do have doubts about my buprenorphine administration because I refuse to hold her mouth or pry her jaw while it's recovering. Instead, I place the tip against a squirming mouth, shoot, and pray that she receives enough.

She didn't have an FME due to stomatitis so she doesn't have mouth ulcers to overcome. And she also didn't have very many teeth left. But she had a few root tips left behind by less skilled DVMs. I paid for four dental blocks so she must have had some work done in each quadrant of her mouth.

My question is: how long does a procedure like this take to heal? I have the dentist's mobile and plan to text him tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone has had a cat who had either an FME or a substantial number of teeth removed due to resorption, can you comment on how long it took for the cat to return to full portions?

I don't regret doing this because there were all kinds of wrong in her mouth from three different non-dentist DVMs and multiple rounds of extractions. I am simply worried that she's still not eating enough to stop her weight loss.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

If you have the Vet's cell number, why not text him today? I know it's Sunday, but I'm guessing he gave you his cell number for a reason, so why not use it? I'm wondering if perhaps the anesthesia they used was still numbing her mouth a little until Friday, and when it wore off that's why she slowed down eating . Are you adding any egg yolks to her food to up the calories. I'm pretty sure yo've posted about those in some threads we've both posted on, but can't recall for sure. I know she has digestive issues, so that might not work as they can "help things move along", which might not be good, but since she's on pain killers right now, maybe it would be.

As to your original question on time, sorry, I just don't know. Plus every cat heals differently.

 

[daftcat75]

I texted him quite a bit the first night and a little over the next couple of days. I'm giving him a break but I am also testing something out. She's eating through Tiki Cat Ahi Tuna almost as well as I'd like right now. At first, I was able to mix it with Rawz rabbit. Half of what she wants to eat, half of what I want her eating. But she has apparently tired of the rabbit. I plated all Tiki last night after picking up several half eaten portions yesterday and she finished that plate. She's been finishing the Tiki plates today. If this holds through morning, then it's probably not as worrisome as it was yesterday. As long as the tuna treats her well, she can have all she wants through her recovery. I can work on weaning her to something else later. Right now, I'd rather she eat more food than better food.

I'm definitely thinking that Wednesday's pig-out was because her dental blocks and/or anesthesia were still working. Thursday was a travel day for us so I wasn't tracking her input but she was finishing plates I put in front of her. It was towards the end of Friday night that I started to pick up less than clean plates. And it was only last night that I gave in and stopped mixing the tuna with the rabbit.

Egg yolk is definitely a Krista cleaner. I won't be using that to add calories. She's also over NutriCal. She ate a ton of that last summer to get through pancreatitis and now she won't even touch the stuff. When I talk with the dentist tomorrow, I'll ask whether he thinks an intervention is necessary at this point (appetite stimulant or maybe even pred) or whether to just let her recovery run its course.

Plus, she has a weigh-in tomorrow morning where I can see whether 4 oz/day (her current target) is enough to stop the weight loss.

 

[daftcat75]

I’m treating this like tonsillitis and letting her have all the ice cream (Tiki tuna) she can eat during her recovery period. Since I removed the rabbit and just let her eat tuna, she’s been cleaning plates.

We’re also out of bupe. She doesn’t seem to need it anymore. Maybe it was affecting her appetite as well.

 

[MissClouseau]

This was informative to read, thanks for sharing. Hima needs dental work as well and it's a fear of mine the vet won't do a good job but could make it worse -- this happened to my own teeth with two different dentists on different teeth. Anyway!....

Have you checked this dentist's Facebook page or alike? If you see a review there maybe you can DM couple people and ask how recovery went for them.

 

[daftcat75]

This was informative to read, thanks for sharing. Hima needs dental work as well and it's a fear of mine the vet won't do a good job but could make it worse -- this happened to my own teeth with two different dentists on different teeth. Anyway!....

Have you checked this dentist's Facebook page or alike? If you see a review there maybe you can DM couple people and ask how recovery went for them.

If you have access to a dental specialist, I highly recommend it over a general veterinarian.

I think Krista is doing alright for less than a week out. She's eating around 4 to 5 oz of canned, on her own. That's a huge improvement from before this where she showed almost no interest in canned anymore and it took forever to get to 4 oz of homemade raw when she would only eat about 10 grams at a time. If this dips again, I'll text the dentist.

I don't really use Facebook or the like anymore. I found those FB and its ad partners were getting more out of me than I was getting out of them.