Small animal dentistry
We are dealing with small animal dental and oral pathologies in two fully furnished dental offices in Estonian University of Life Sciences Small Animal Clinic by the combined efforts of our two enthusiast in veterinary dentistry level veterinarians - Kadri Kääramees and Aiki Saaremäe -, and our team of excellent assistants.
We are supported by our anaesthesiologist – Aleksandr Semjonov, and colleagues from diagnostic imaging and surgery as needed.
In addition to patient work we are also actively involved in disseminating small animal veterinary dentistry related knowledge among our colleagues and future colleagues aka veterinary students.
A large part of our work consists of diagnostics and treatment of the most common oral and dental conditions dogs and cats suffer from, namely periodontal disease and dental hard issue injuries.
We also deal with malocclusions, different inflammatory oral cavity syndromes, oral masses and traumatic injuries to the soft tissues, bones and joints of the head and oral cavity.
Diagnosing and treating oral and dental problems in dogs and cats always neccessitates general anaesthesia. This is because our pets are not patients to whom we could communicate like we would for a fully aware, rational human the nature of and need for these procedures nor the self-restraint needed for those – sharp and rotary equipment used during these procedures would thus present a very real and obvious danger to both the patient and the operator if we would try to do the procedure in an awake or a lightly sedated animal. Intubation – placement of a breathing tube into a patient’s trachea – is also obligatory for most dental procedures for the purpose of the protection of the airways.
For patients with concurrent health problems or advanced age, our anaesthesiologist will be monitoring the anaesthesia safety if deemed neccessary.
In diagnosing oral and dental problems, diagnostic imaging is of great importance in addition to a thorough examination under anaesthesia; most commonly, intraoral dental radiography is employed for the purpose, but also, if needed, computed tomography or other modalities.
We always have our patients and their owners come in for an awake examination and consultation first before setting a time for the anaesthetic procedure. This helps us to get a preliminary read about the problem in hand and its extent, enables us to do pre-anaesthetic checks and allows us to work with the owner to decide which would be the most suitable solution for a particular pet-owner-problem combination.
With many an oral trouble, owner-administered routine homecare will be of utmost importance. We do have to remember though that an awake examination does not give us all the information about oral cavity and dental conditions we need and a more thorough diagnostic examination will take place during an anaesthetised procedure that will then be planned for; also, generally, treatment of discovered pathologies is very often begun within the same anaesthetic episode.
A dentistry procedure under a general anaesthesia – called a comprehensive oral health assessment and treatment (COHAT) – consists of a thorough examination and charting of the oral cavity and dentition, intraoral radiography, supra-and subgingival dental cleaning and polishing and formulating a further treatment plan as needed.
We would like to encourage our good colleagues who wish to refer a patient to us or just discuss a case with us to contact our dental team veterinarians via link here.
