Teeth extracted....won't eat 2 weeks later
 

Chesney, who is our 10 yr old yorkie has had 2 rounds of teeth extractions in the past month. We first noticed him dropping weight and not eating much. After further inspection he was barely eating at all. We took him to our primary vet who removed 16 teeth. He said 3 of them were highly infected...even gave us the teeth in a baggie to take home. Chesney showed some interest in eating the first day or so after surgery, but quickly went back to his old ways (not eating). To make a long story short, and after multiple re-visits to the vet we decided to get a second opinion. The second vet recommend 6 more teeth to come out...of which we agreed. It has now been 2 weeks since that and he's still not wanting to eat hardly anything. Every so often we can tempt him with a marshmallow, or a small piece of cheese. We have literally been syringe feeding him 3 times a day, but he's not gaining weight back.The vet today recommend we go see a specialists as when the extraction was taking place they may have left a part of the root in place. I guess the specialist has better xray equipment to check that out. Chesney is still "smacking" his jaw every so often as if something is either in there, or he's still in pain. We don't see him wimper or wine, just doesn't have any interest in eating. We've tried mushed up chicken and rice, baby food, and about 7 varieties of wet dog food. We've been injecting him with prescription diet AD and then a high vitamin nutritional supplement.

My question to your group is.....Have you ever heard of such complications post teeth extraction? Not getting all of the roots?

Any other thoughts on how to make him eat on his own?

Thanks in advance
-Nathan

Welcome to YT.:)

Yes, roots can be left behind. This is most often a problem when a vet pulls teeth without dental xray. At this point you need to make an urgent trip to a veterinary dentist. Your pup may also need more antibiotics.

Your Pet Dentist

ETA: This is assuming that everything metabolically is normal (bloodwork, etc.).

Thanks for the reply! Metabolically he checks out.....well I guess there is a one more set of bloodwork that needs to be sent off to check for cancer stuff, but I really think this is more teeth related. We are going to try to get into another vet tomorrow that has equipment capable of getting good shots of his teeth. He was on antibiotics previously (post surgery) for 7 days, but those are gone.

Thanks for the petdentist link!

-Nathan

Update - We visited a new vet today that had an xray dental machine. The vet was awesome and took him right in and started doing diagnostics. She found a broken root sticking up through the gums that was not removed properly when the teeth were extracted during the first round. She got that removed and then found two other places where the gums were not healing properly from previous extractions. She cleaned those up also. We just got home with him and he immediately went to the food bowl. We pulled that up and gave him a tablespoon size of wet food that he immediately ate up....first food he's ate on his own in weeks. Nothing else for tonight until the anesthesia wears off, but so far so good. He's got a nice serving of antibodies and pain meds for the next week or so. Hopefully this did the job!

That's wonderful. -- kudos to you for being so persistent.