Hi everyone,
I made a post several weeks ago regarding my brother’s cat Challa, who needed major dental surgery. I posted my brother’s go fund me for the surgery and I want to thank everyone who donated, it was very helpful. Challa had his surgery on the 23rd and thankfully, they only had to remove 7 teeth. He was able to keep his canines which was a relief. He has been recovering well and is feeling much better, but still grouchy. Here are some pics of him!
Thanks again everyone!
So I recently had an ordeal with my cat. And your story is just making me consider my situation as maybe more urgent than I would have thought otherwise.
I took in a stray back in April and recently he had some incident.
So 3 days ago. He was sleeping on his cat tree. I go over to pet him. And notice there is blood all over his mouth. He’s laying there like nothing wrong.
I clean him up. Can’t tell where it’s coming from. Did he bite himself ? (He’s getting over having fleas and is sensitive to them). Did he eat something sharp? Bite his tounge. Idk. I’m kinda freaking out.
I called the vet that did his last checkup for a breathing issue. Not too long ago.
I tell them I don’t know where the blood came from. But he’s not bleeding anymore. It’s late in the day Thursday and they are only open until noon on Friday.
They said that they would check with the dr. And call me back. They did like 1 hour later. To my horror. His mouth was full of blood again.
And I cleaned him and looked around the house for any sign of him injuring himself. Didn’t find anything. No blood near food bowls either. Idk what happened.
He did stop bleeding that day but it was actually quite a lot of blood. The vet said on the phone to monitor him. They asked me a lot of questions. We were both trying to figure out where the injury even was.
I think maybe ,(hard to say) it looked like a puncture wound near the upper left premolar. The second one.
It was hard to hold him on his back, hold a flashlight and his mouth open at the same time. But he was actually mostly easy about it.
But now after searching online a bit. And having a few more looks at his teeth. I think it’s possible he had a dental injury. Either a small tooth fell out. Possibly “baby tooth” . I don’t know his age but honestly that seems unlikely. He seems like a full adult.
Or maybe an abscess near a tooth. Which I thought looked like a puncture wound. Or an extra tooth fell out. I myself had an extra set of molars as a kid so these things happen. Rare but it does.
Idk. I’m just hearing all these stories about cat teeth. And his don’t look great. He has a lot of tartar. Compared to my 11 year old cat, his teeth are in far worse condition. My 11 year olds teeth actually look great. Very white. Clean.
This new cat’s are discolored and have obvious tartar and plaque. But not extreme. No inflamed gums except in the possible injury site. He does have kinda stinky breath but don’t all cats ? It is worse than the other cat though. Idk.
I’m calling the vet back Monday and asking for a dental exam and possibly see if he needs his teeth cleaned. I know it’s a big expensive ordeal. But getting it fixed early is better than him losing teeth.
Ive been catastrophizing all weekend. I’m just so worried.
It was so much blood. Where did it even come from?
I would definitely get a full dental exam. We had another cat who also had chronic inflammation of his gums which caused them to bleed often. Similar to what you experienced, we found blood on his mouth and the walls cuz he would shake his head. He ended up getting some teeth removed and didn’t have any issues after that. And as for the bad breath, that usually is an indicator of bad teeth hygiene, cavities or possibly rotting teeth. They can even have broken teeth that food gets stuck in which causes issues. I hope they can find the issue and fix it!
Yeah I also found splatters on the wall. He’s such a tough little guy, he never acts like anything is wrong.
I watched him eat a few times since, to see if he tilted his head to the side or gave any indication of discomfort.
Nope.
And still has a hearty appetite. But he has an unusually high appetite in general. I think its from being literally skin and bones when I found him. So I think maybe that experience is motivating him to eat even if he’s in pain from it.
Essentially masking symptoms.
It’s so hard to tell when animals can’t communicate these things.
He’s also black and his lip and inner mouth area is dark skin. It makes it harder for me to tell if it’s inflamed.
I’m just feeling like this needs professional attention.
Good news. The vet had a cancellation so I was able to get an appointment for day after tomorrow. Fingers crossed it goes well. Hopefully nothing too serious.
Thats good! I hope it goes well
Hope your fur baby nephew is recovering well. Does he seem like he’s adjusting?
Thank you! And yes, he is still grumpy, but he is feeling better.
Got good and bad news.
So Noir has Feline immunodeficiency virus. Basically kitty HIV.
Good news is that it’s not developed into the AIDS form. So at present he’s in relatively good health. Though he does have a chronic runny nose. Which I had taken him to the vet for before but they couldn’t do much except offer some suggestions that haven’t resolved it.
Vet said it looks like maybe one of his back teeth broke off but it was very hard to tell and even harder to tell if it was recent or not. But she suggested a tooth cleaning. Doing that next week. Which will also involve dental X-rays.
They are also going to take chest X-rays while he’s knocked out to check on that upper respiratory problem a bit more now that we know he’s FIV positive. And it doesn’t seem to be allergies as he got a steroid shot during last visit and it didn’t help much.
When I took him in , back in April, he had a very nasty bite on his back side. And another older scar from a previous one. This is the primary way FIV is transmitted. So honestly it’s not surprising but it definitely saddens me that his life might be pretty short. Some cats never become symptomatic. But most do at some point.
I’ll just cherish the time I have with him.
Another concern is my other cat is fiv negative.
Just like with HIV, just living or being around someone with it doesn’t really put you at risk.
It’s spread in specific ways. Mostly blood to blood or saliva to blood contact. Meaning a wound is needed to receive infected body fluids of an infected cat.
My cats aren’t friends. And they are kind of hostile with each other but not actively fighting. For a while they were hissing and growling and trying to get a slap in when they could but never any extreme fighting. Never any biting. But now it’s just my old cat hissing and growling when the other cat is semi near. But otherwise hostilities have chilled. Finally.
So I’m not super worried about the risk of deep bites that could infect my older cat.
And also what can I do about it anyway?
Give up Noir to a shelter where he will probably be euthanized ?
To me that’s not an option. Even if it puts my other cat at risk. To me it’s a small risk vs a certain death of one of them.
Some might not agree but we all have to weigh our options. And that’s the one I’m going with.
Good boy! Get better soon!
Thinking good thoughts.
Aww poor kitty
