Have you ever wondered why we do dental radiographs with all of our dental cleanings? We had an excellent example recently of the kind of dental issues that hide below the gums. This is Luna, an 8 year old Border Collie mix that came in for a dental because she had quite a bit of tartar on her teeth and bad breath. She also had a small growth around one tooth that needed to come out. Well we were in for a surprise that day when we got her under anesthesia and took those radiographs.
You can see the tartar on the teeth on these “before” pictures, but the gums haven’t pulled away from the roots and overall they look like healthy but dirty teeth. Below are some of the radiographs that were taken. You can see that the bone has receded down the roots of many of the teeth. There were deep pockets by some of the teeth reflecting the bone loss. The white line indicates where the bone should be. The yellow arrows show where the bone actually stops. Many of these teeth were extracted due to the infection and bone loss around the roots. Removing diseased teeth removes the pain and discomfort of the tooth itself, and helps protect the surrounding teeth from progression of the dental disease.
This is pretty advanced dental disease that we wouldn’t have known about based on just a physical exam. Anesthesia-free dentals can lead to a very similar situation since they do not address disease under the gum line. They are not recommended because they can lead to a false sense of security about the health of the teeth, and major problems can be overlooked. We’re glad Luna’s owner was able to do this dental and get all these diseased teeth addressed. Luna’s been doing great since then!
