Murphy

Murphy used to have beautiful white teeth.  But the past couple of years they’ve gotten more & more build-up on them and his breath has gotten horrid.  Last spring at his check-up our vet suggested a dental cleaning, but I declined.  At the time I told him that Murphy was 3 years post-op and way past what his prognosis had been, and I was afraid to have him go under general anesthesia because I was sure that he probably had some lung metastasis by now.  So, he prescribed some antibiotics for him – clindamycin twice a day for 10 days every month, it’s an old-school treatment to kill the bacteria in his mouth.  That, I was willing to do (well, until I had to pay for the antibiotics! lol $78 yikes!).

But with the clear x-rays last month I started thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to finally get this done for him.  He’s lost a couple of teeth in the front and his gums are red, so I worry that maybe his teeth are painful and it probably hurts to eat.   So last week he got his blood work done – and it came back perfect!  🙂  And on Monday he started on antibiotics.

Then came this morning.  Well.  He was fine when I went to bed last night.  And he was fine when my husband got up for work and let the dogs outside.  But 15 minutes later he let them in and Murphy just laid down inside the door whining.  He wouldn’t walk and he kept crying.  It seemed like it might be his front leg that hurt so I put some ice on it and gave him a Carprofen.  When I got back up a little while later, he still whined, but I still couldn’t pinpoint where he was hurt, until I tried to turn his head aside to get to his shoulder – then he yelped.  So I wondered if maybe it was his neck/shoulder area that was hurt?  I did some massage to the area and let him rest some more.  When we left for the vet’s he was able to walk out & get into the car pretty well.

I made sure to tell the techs exactly what happened, as far as I knew.  They offered to re-schedule, but I was pretty sure he probably just tweaked something while he was outside.  I left him there and left the decision up to the doctor when he got in.  Murphy ended up with 5 or 6 extractions and came home with some Tramadol & more antibiotics.  He’s mostly been resting today, but he did eat some canned food tonight.  And he does have some beautiful white teeth!

Donna

~ by midnighter94 on October 7, 2016 . Tagged: Dental