Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Dental surprise!


One of my patients, Tazo, was having a hard time chewing her food so she was brought in for an exam. Her 108 (really big upper molar had some gum recession and purulent (abcess material) along the gum line. We scheduled her for surgery.


Well, today was the day. We took a radiograph to see what was going on with the bone around the tooth and to see if there were any tooth root abcesses. I was not expecting to see this picture. The entire back root was gone, as was the bone from infection. It also usually takes anywhere from 20-40 minutes to remove this tooth but it only took half the time. The biggest problem was getting enough gum tissue to cover the sockets once I got all the "debris" out of them.

Here is the after picture with the area sutured close. No more wiggly, painful tooth! Plus, her breath doesn't clear a room out now.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

I saw red!

This week, we got a call that an emergency was coming in and they were just a few minutes out. Dog versus horse. That is about as heart warming as reading a Dean Koontz book.

In came Soda with blood coming from the right nostril and the right eye trying to leave its socket. The picture kind of tells the story for me.
Everything was bloody. The anterior chamber (area of eye in front of pupil was full of blood, the sclera (white of the eye) was bulging and the entire eye was being pushed out by the hematoma that was likely bleeding behind the eye itself. The swollen eyelids were basically holding the eye in place.


I was so proud of my staff. We got things happening pretty quickly. Stephanie drove to Troy's clinic to get non-absorbable suture (I only had absorbable), Kelly, PJ, Claire and Caitie got her pre-meded and under a general anesthetic while Jac and Belle rearranged my schedule so we could do the procedure.

The procedure is pretty neat when you don't think about what would happen if you accidently poked the eye with the needle............You basically use the eyelids as the bandage. The eyes stay lubricated and by suturing the eyelids closed, it stops the bleeding. To make sure the eyelids don't rip (well, if you don't like gross stuff, you should have stopped reading sooner!) I used small pieces of IV tubing as anchors. We will remove the sutures in 2 weeks and see what is happening. There is a chance she may be blind in that eye but as long as she is comfortable, that is the most important thing!