Monday, June 18, 2012

Teeth and sympathy

 Warning- these are kind of grisly pictures.



Turn away now if you are squeemish~


Aha! You want to see this!


Ok~ I warned you.

This picture is of Rem's remaining teeth.

As you may remember, right before I was able to purchase him, he flipped himself over and smashed the side of his mouth. He broke the top teeth and the bottom teeth. His jaw is not misaligned, and so I purchased him even though his teeth looked horrible.

The bottom corner teeth  were pushed out and a permanent tooth was behind it. It erupted early because there was nothing above it, holding it down so to speak. The day I had him gelded, I had those two teeth removed, leaving just the permanent tooth to come in, and hopefully slide into place.

Then on the day of the May horse show, he broke that tooth too. Or rather, he ripped it out of his face, leaving the open and gaping wound shown. Took a whole lot of flesh with it, I think he must have been 'teething' on something, got it caught somehow, panicked and pulled until it broke.

I took him to the vet and had it x-rayed. It was fractured horizontally, not vertically. Thank heaven for small favors. The vet said he couldn't tell if the pulp was still alive or not, only time would tell.

So I've been flushing the wound every day with antiseptic mouthwash and brushing that tooth.

Yep, Really. I. Have. Been. Brushing. That. Tooth.
 Rem is really good about it. I just hand twitch his nose out of the way and brush gently.
 This is the same tooth after one month. The flesh is healing and the tooth hasn't died ...yet. The other teeth are still baby teeth. Lord help him when they fall out.
He was sore and a little bit unfocused for the first few weeks, so I didn't ride much. But now it seems better, so we are back on the training path.
It's always something....