Tooth abscess advice and cost

[TanyaN94]

Hello,
Yesterday we noticed one of our piggy’s face had swollen on one side and her eye was weeping with slightly off coloured discharge. Other than these symptoms she is generally fine in herself - still eating and drinking etc and no behavioural changes. From what I can tell the abscess doesn’t appear to be giving her much pain, as she does not flinch away when being touched in that area, or even when the vet was looking in her mouth. We contacted the local exotic vets and they got us in for an appointment to look at her today.
After looking her over and checking her teeth they said she has spurs on her teeth which they advised was most likely due to genetics as she has a narrow pointy face, and these are likely the cause of the abscess. They have provided us with eye drops and anti inflammatory meds, and booked her in for a CT scan so they can get a clearer idea of the health of her teeth and impact of the abscess. Following this they are advising surgery for abscess marsupialisation, and to address her teeth.
The appointment today was over £200 for the consultation and the meds, and we have been told the CT scan is likely to be £1500.
My main question is do these prices sound about right? We weren’t told the cost of the surgery so I can only imagine how much that is going to cost on top of this, given the price of the CT scan! I don’t feel like we have any other option but to pay these costs to make her better, but as it is beyond expensive, I want to be confident that we are paying correctly for this treatment.

 

[Truffolo]

Bumping. I hope your piggy gets better soon

 

[Freela]

I can't help much on price as I'm in Canada and our prices are all so different. I can say that I have had dental abscesses treated without a CT scan (an option I've honestly never been given for anything!) I think if the price of CT is prohibitative, it's possible to go ahead with the abscess surgery without necessarily getting advanced imaging ahead of time.

For my pigs who had dental abscesses, they underwent surgery to open up the abscess through the cheek. It left a big nasty hole to allow the pus to keep on draining. Their teeth were trimmed under the same GI to manage any spurs or uneven growth. After that they came home with antibiotics, recovery food to syringe them if they weren't eating enough, and a syringe so that we could continue to clean the wound and express any pus that build back up. The idea was to let the wound heal from the inside out.

I would be sure that your vet has experience with guinea pig teeth generally, I think that's the most important thing. One of my pigs didn't pull through her dental abscess- she really never went back to eating independently afterwards. I found out later on that the vet didn't have a ton of experience with guinea pigs- I think he cut her teeth too short and she was on a pretty mild dose of antibiotics that didn't fight the infection while but did severely impact her appetite and digestive system. Our other pig had much better luck- the vet hit her with a stronger antibiotic, did a better job trimming her teeth, and she was just a fighter of a guinea pig who never stopped eating, even when she couldn't open her mouth because of how swollen the abscess was. She was a tough girl, healed up great, and lived to old age several years after her abscess.

Hope this helps a bit and all the best going forward!

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m sorry to hear this

CTs aren’t something done often due to the cost of them - a lot of owners probably don’t get the option of a ct if their vet isn’t a specialist centre.

I hope she is ok

 

[weepweeps]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I’m in Swindon!

I have had a piggy with a tooth root abscess. It was huge. 4cm wide. I went to my normal vet who didn’t want to operate so sent me to Great Western Exotics. I didn’t go to them as they quoted me the prices you have been told.

I drove to Northampton to go to the Cat and Rabbit Vets. They were amazing. I think it cost about £500. No ct, x-ray needed.

Here is the thread if you’d like to take a look. It’s quite long but it’s got lots of advice from people on here.

Dental? Pepper is off to the vets tomorrow

Good luck. Feel free to ask any questions.