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Dental disease affects nearly all adult cats at some point in their life. If left untreated, dental disease can be a hidden source of pain and discomfort, lowers the appetite, can cause weight loss and prevents your cat from being able to adequate groom themselves. Infection in the gums and surrounding bone can lead to other serious health problems including heart and kidney disease.

In order to perform thorough dental treatment for cats, they will require administration of a general anaesthetic. This allows the vet to perform gum probing to assess for any pathology and also enables them to obtain a complete set of dental x-rays.

Before your cat is able to go under an anaesthetic, they will need a full physical examination by one of our vets. It is also recommended to screen your cat for underlying disease using a pre-anaesthetic blood test, especially if they are over eight years of age. These tests are run in our in-house laboratory.

A thorough approach to treating your cat’s dental disease will involve the following steps:

1. Full and complete dental exam

It is impossible to perform a complete dental exam in a conscious cat. Whilst we can certainly get a partial picture of what may be happening, under anaesthetic we are able to examine each tooth from all sides.

2. Gum probing and checking for pathology

Our hospital has a dedicated dental suite where we perform all our dentistry procedures. We have an Elite IM3 dental machine complete with an advanced LED high speed drill in addition to the full range of feline specific IM3 dentistry hand pieces. This allows us to use the gentlest approach to your cat’s mouth.

Each tooth is probed carefully under the gum tissue to assess for any loss of gum attachment to the tooth and to diagnose feline tooth resorptive lesions. Feline tooth resorptive lesions (TRs) are extremely painful and once they have developed, the changes in the tooth are irreversible. Unfortunately the only form of treatment for TRs is tooth extraction.

3. Dental X-rays

We recommend all cats undergoing dental treatment have a full mouth dental x-ray series done.

Our IM3 digital dental x-ray unit gives excellent, high quality digital x-ray images and we are always happy to provide digital copies to you. We recommend all cats undergoing dental treatment have a full series of dental x-ray series performed. Up to 50% of dental pathology in cats will be hidden below the gum line which means many lesions will not be detected without taking x-rays.

Early tooth resorptive lesions in cats may not be easy to pick up, but on x-rays they show up easily. X-rays will also reveal to us the extent of the resorption lesion and the shape of the tooth root structures. This makes surgical tooth extraction a much safer procedure for your cat, and makes it easier for the vet too.

4. Teeth Ultrasonic scale and polish

Our Elite IM3 dental suite has an ultrasonic scaler, LED high speed drill, polisher, suction and a three way syringe to flush the mouth. After carefully probing every tooth and obtaining x-rays, we then proceed with cleaning each tooth surface with an ultrasonic scaler. This removes all the tartar from the tooth surface. Polishing the tooth surface creates a smooth area making it more difficult for plaque to adhere to and thus delaying further tartar formation.

5. Tooth Extractions if necessary

Reasons for tooth extraction are numerous but include abscess formation, tooth resorptive lesions, crown fractures, severe gum recession with root exposure and loose teeth. If the patient requires a tooth extraction, we will firstly administer a local nerve block to provide them with additional pain relief.

Extracting a cat’s tooth is no simple matter as their roots are often three times the depth or size of the crown, as opposed to our own teeth where the crown and root are of similar size. This means the extraction procedure can be far more time consuming and complicated than in humans, especially when removing a multi-rooted tooth. Many tooth extractions require a surgical flap of gum tissue to be elevated to be able to access the root properly without damage to the surrounding bone and gums. Where possible, once the tooth is extracted we seal the sockets with a special dental fibre cement called Alvogyl and then suture the gum flap back in place using fine dissolvable sutures.

We also now have the iM3 Vet-Tome atraumatic dental system to help with some of our extractions. The automated periotome system helps the dental surgeon to extract teeth with much reduced trauma to the surrounding structures and significantly reduced loss of surrounding alveolar bone. Some teeth are more complex to remove, as discussed above, and may still require more extensive burring and gum flaps. Our team always endeavour to be as atraumatic as possible but ensure your cat’s pain and disease is managed in the best way possible.

6. Developing a Dental Prevention Plan

Prevention is key and the home care that you provide for your cat’s oral health will form a vital part of their ongoing treatment plan. Recommendations may include special diets such as Royal Canin Dental, feeding of raw chunks of meat, addition of supplements to the drinking water, and for some very compliant cats brushing their teeth. Note all raw food must be pre-frozen for at least one week and be graded for human consumption. Cats with immunosuppression (such as FIV positive cats) or on certain medications may not tolerate a raw meat based diet. If feeding solely a raw meat based diet this must be balanced for nutrition. Chat to one of our vets for further dietary advice.

Not all cats will tolerate regular teeth brushing. If your cat is fearful or has a tendency to bite or scratch, we do not recommend attempting to brush their teeth as it can increase their anxiety and lead to you getting injured. Brushing needs to be done on a regular basis using an enzyme-enhanced toothpaste designed specifically for cats with a special animal toothbrush. Do not use human toothpastes, as the ingredients can be harmful to your cat and his/her teeth.

Introduce your cat to brushing gradually. Do your training before feeding your cat so you can reward them with treats. Start with getting your cat used to having his/her mouth handled, then progress to smearing some of the toothpaste on the outside surfaces of the teeth by holding the mouth closed and lifting the lip a little. Only when this is well accepted do you begin brushing. Be gentle. A circular motion is the most effective for cleaning teeth.

(There is a video at the end of this page on how to brush your cat’s teeth.)

7. Regular dental check ups

We recommend that your cat returns for a revisit one week after their dental procedure, or sooner if advised by your vet. If all is well at this check-up, from here we recommend a repeat dental check every six months. Problems that may need to be checked more frequently include retained temporary teeth, gum disease, mouth infections, loose and fractured teeth and tartar build up.