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Old 01-21-2021, 08:13 AM   #1
Jenna AK
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Southwest Oregon, heart left in Alaska
Posts: 371
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Exclamation Continuned facial discomfort almost 2 months after dental

Hello friends,
I'm dealing with continuing discomfort in my 12 year old girl, Jenna. On December 1 last year she had a dental with four extractions: two lower jaw molars and a canine tooth, with it's neighbor, on her upper left jaw. She'd been pawing at her face and rubbing it on the bedding, plus scratching at her face and ears and having difficulty controlling her tongue. She's already lost most of her teeth, it would probably be easier to tell you which ones she has left but I don't have a current chart.


At first she seemed to do a bit better but the surgery itself was crammed into an already busy schedule which caused me concern as to how thorough they were being; she bled quite a bit more than she has in previous extractions which really scared me and I didn't realize they gave her a nerve block which we've tried to avoid in the past because of how small her face is and history of it causing more post operative difficulties. While she's been seen several times since the surgery and the vet has claimed her surgical sites healed properly and he sees no obvious ear issues, (which doesn't mean she may not have something going on in her inner ear) she did have a fistula at the canine extraction site and it seems to me she's still having discomfort at this spot. I cannot brush (what's left of) her teeth anymore because it sends her off into spasms where she'll scratch and paw at her face furiously, worse than it was before the operation. We've got her on once daily metacam and now have added gabapentin just this last week at 0.2 mls once in the evenings. Honestly she hates the taste which makes her flail at her mouth even more and mealtimes and walks outside in the cold and the wind result in at least an hour of agitation where she's grinding her teeth and rubbing her face or scratching and pawing her mouth and chin.


I'm beginning to despair that we can get her feeling better and the vet we see has no answers for me as to what it can be. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what could be going on and what we can try to help her now? I'm worried the gabapentin is only making her too sedated to care if she's in pain, not necessarily relieving her pain, or that she may have a root fragment in her jaw that's causing issues or maybe the fistula hasn't healed? She also tends to move her lower jaw from side to side in a horizontal motion which she's never done before, usually while falling asleep. It's heartbreaking to see her trying to find relief from whatever is causing her mouth issues and I can't buy the explanation that it's just from her having lost so many teeth that she can't figure out where to put her tongue and so is biting it. The vet can't find any damage to the tongue either. I'm at the end of my rope and sadly feel the next thing they're going to suggest is pts.

Sleep has been sent to the devil for us both for months now and I worry she's just going to give up at some point. I think there may be nerve damage from the block or the extractions and worry there's no way to resolve it. I've also read that gabapentin can prevent some nerves from healing themselves. I want her to have pain relief but not at that cost.


Many thanks in advance for any and all replies.
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Jenna Bean ~ ~ An angel on four legs Sometimes I wonder who rescued who?
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