Advice please – dental issues

[Bubs4521]

Hi all, I would be grateful for some advice please. Our little Rabbit Pickle is 8 years old, and always been very healthy until two months ago when he stopped eating, and we had to take him to the vet. It turned out to be a sharp spike on his molar tooth and this had caused a puncture wound in his mouth. He came home and was fine again until yesterday (9 weeks had passed). He basically had all of the same symptoms all over again, and so we rushed him to the vet. Today he had to be put under a general anaesthetic again due to the same problem. We picked him up and brought him home, and he is quite out of it at the moment and understandably very sleepy. However, we had a very honest chat with the vet who said that this will now unfortunately be a common occurrence, possibly every 4-6 weeks. She said that it will get more risky with each general that he has, due to his age, and that we should prepare ourselves that this could be how we lose him in the end. What I want to ask is, is this cruel?? Is he suffering? Is this right to keep doing?
I would be grateful for any advice from anyone who is also in the same situation, or has been in the past.
Thank you in advance, Helen

[Wick & Fable]

I haven’t heard of molar grinding needing to be as frequent as every 4-6 weeks— that seems like very accelerated molar growth, considering your rabbit is 8yo now. Wick will need molar grinding operations every 2 to 3 months because of his small mouth and indifference to chewing, and that’s the frequency of “going really often”, as I’ve been told.

Did your vet mention if it is the same molar/side creating the issue? My initial thought is your rabbit’s teeth are finally getting long enough to become a bother, so the treatment would be getting all the molars ground down to a manageable length again. If your vet did the first operation successfully, and it appeared again, I’m guessing it was a different location that your vet did not foresee being an issue. I don’t want to question a professional’s judgement, but from my understanding of molar grindings/spurs, and having Wick who’s gone through two of these so far at only 10mo, I’m fairly certain just one grinding of all sharpened spurs should alleviate the issue, long term, unless there is something actually wrong with Rabbit Pickle’s teeth.

Do you have any insight on the above?

… If you look at the image found on this online forum post: (https://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/threads/96198-Continuing-dental-problem-worried-we-can-t-fix-this) …. which I believe is actually a guinea pig, but the same scenario regardless, you can see what molar “spikes” are. My thought is your vet found one case where the wound appeared, but did not find the others. Again, I can’t imagine a scenario where a ground-down spike could grow back that fast.  — The forum post I just cited, though again I think is guinea-pig, also cites instance of going very often, as you state. To try and elongate the visits, which may be locked as regular now, I’d say try your best to increase hay consumption and chewing, whether it be getting a coarser hay, cutting down pellets to encourage more hay eating, etc..

Is your rabbit eating hay at his normal frequency when he’s not abstaining due to dental issues? Is there a way to make him eat/chew more?

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I agree, that is very fast. But I have heard of bunnies needing them done fairly frequent so it is a possibility. Perhaps his teeth are aligned in a way that he is really unable to grind them down evenly. That is the case with my 10 year old guy, Bindi. He needs his teeth done every 5 months or so. I worry putting him under, for sure, but he is healthy and happy the rest of the time so it’s necessary to keep him that way.

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