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please tell me I'm being paranoid about teeth!

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ellie_jo3213

ellie_jo3213

Teenage Guinea Pig
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Background: Had dental in June for cheek teeth, had dental in July for cheek teeth, cut nuggets out from diet for past two months, been eating fine (still eating fine), thought I'd get a quick look at her incisors today, and they look like this: (i thought a picture explaining it would be clearer)
pigteeth.jpg

Shes continually moving her lower jaw to her right hand side (I have a video of it uploading to photobucket right now, but it may take a while!)
I've got a mouth gag and cheek dilators to look in the mouth, but I cant towel wrap her to keep her still to have a look! She's too wriggly and grumpy.
 
Sorry, I don't have any useful suggestions. I haven't seen a jaw movement like that before. Has she always done it? It's good that she eats well. :)
 
No not always, I think it started in June (I was in uni when she needed the 1st dental) and shes done it ever since. Kept thinking it would stop after the dental. I'm convinced its something to do with the back teeth, and now its started to affect the front teeth. The left bottom incisor is flat, but she can still slice through carrots, and skin!
 
It may be worth you sending the vid to Vedra at the CCT - she may have some insights into it.

To me it suggests the back teeth are out of alignment and I would get her seen quickly - I see from your locaton that you could get her to see Lance Jepson - he's at the Carmarthen vets on a Monday as far as I know - his website is down just now so I can't tell you which vet surgery it is. He's the only one around here I would trust with my piggies' teeth - though I did get good results using Nick at the St James' Vet Group that Lance works with in Neath.

Suzy x
 
I spend 5 weeks at carmarthen practice and spoke to Lance about pigs teeth. He wont do it with out GA, nor will any of the other vets.
I suppose I could send it to the CCT, and maybe AP ( does anyone know if he has an email address?). I'm quite limited to where I can take her, Ive heard of one place in bristol that does dentals with no GAs. I'm going back to Brizzle next week and the pig is coming up a few weeks later, so I guess I could try there if needs be. I don't have a car, yet anyway, so cant go too far a-field.
 
I have never seen jaw movements like that before either. You could try PMing LauraCCC4 as she has some experience with guinea pig teeth. Your piggy is gorgeous by the way :) xx
 
was wondering, could attacking the bars of the cage do this to the front teeth?
shes not best pleased with me in the video as ive just attempted to trim her nails, she was too wriggly for the front ones so looks like its going to be a 2 person job.
also ive just realised how messy my room is! but in my defence I'm packing to go back to uni on the weekend. Also you can see my collapsed bookcase, silly heavy 2nd year work breaking my furniture!
 
The jaw movements do suggest back teeth trouble to me, my feeling at the moment purely from your diagram and video, is that the teeth are not sitting on top of each other properly, she is trying to sit her jaw in it's normal position but teeth aren't allowing it. Nooshi does the same when her molars are overgrown.

I will have to check with other rodentologists on this one but from your diagrams of the incisors, it does suggest molar trouble again, and the incisors *might* be heading towards reverse occlusion (where the lower incisors are further in front of the uppers). I say *might*, because although the lower incisors should be set further back, it may well be something as simple as the jaw is not sitting correctly because of overgrown molars - thus when molars are corrected, jaw and incisors may move back in their normal position.

I am not a dental expert though, limited experience, so do contact AP if you can as he is more experienced with this kind of thing. I am advising based on what I have experienced in dental pigs, and from what I've learnt from Vedra's book/RHA coursework.
 
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Hi

I would aggree with Laura on this one

It does look like there is a problem with the molars on one side over growing as the tell tail for that problem is the front teeth wearing at an angle.

They do need to be looked at before things get any worse.

Regards

SGP
 
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