Dental surgery = use the bloody dental radiograph machine!

I have given myself a couple of weeks before sitting down to write this particular blog; however, from the title, you may sense that I am still pretty frustrated. This whole thing could have been avoided and the dog would not have been in pain.
So here is a picture of the poor dog. It doesn't take much imagination to see there is a swelling on the side of its face. As well, the dog had ALREADY had dental surgery to remove tooth 208 (the big carnaissal tooth) to help with the swelling. Hmmmmmmmm. The owner had taken the dog back to the original vet concerned because the swelling hadn't gotten any better post-surgery. This person said it would take time to go down so the owner came to see me for a second opinion.

I was able to get a copy of the medical records and no where did it say that the dental radiograph machine had been used or that bloodwork had been performed on this senior dog. Needless to say, we did bloodwork (normal) and radiographs to see what was waiting for us as this tooth has three roots. Gee, that looks like a root to me! Brought out my drill and got it (and some pretty gross abcess material) out in short order.

The next radiograph showed..... the blue arrow pointing at the second root that was left behind (that means the vet only took out one root of three). The red arrow shows a tooth root abcess starting in the tooth in front so it had to be extracted as well.

After taking a final radiograph to make absolute sure there was nothing left, we sutured her up and let her have a well deserved, pain free nap!

So folks, should your dog or cat need to have dental surgery, make sure the facility has the ability to take radiographs so this sort of thing does not happen. Thank you for putting up with my rant!!!!