Sushi's Teeth

I had this grand plan that we would take some close shots of Sushi's mouth, to show how misaligned her teeth are. Do you know how hard it is to get a rat to cooperate with that?

Sushi does her best Elvis impression

Her bottom teeth are nearly impossible to see without forcing her mouth open. Her top teeth though are more obvious, due to the way they exit and then re-enter her mouth.

Sushi's upper incisors, two weeks after getting trimmed.

Fortunately, Dave saved Sushi's teeth after her first visit to the vet. The amazing thing, when I look at them (oddly, they have been in my backpack for the past month), is that the vet left at least that much length in her mouth. So her teeth, prior to that first visit, were twice as long as the giant remnants shown below.

Upper incisors are at the top, lower incisors are below.

The other amazing thing with these horrific teeth, is that Sushi was only 32 grams (at nearly 9 weeks of age). She was just skin and bones with gigantic teeth. Her upper incisors had not yet grown into her palate (a groove had formed but fortunately no broken skin), but her lower ones had grown into her cheek. After the vet trimmed them, she had a tooth-sized hole in her cheek and was on antibiotics for 10 days. She received 0.1 ml of antibiotics twice a day, which was laughably tiny.

Sushi is much healthier today - at her last vet visit two weeks ago, she was 64 grams. She is still a fraction of the size of her sister and probably always will be.

Sushi almost looks like a mouse next to Saké

Despite her size though, she's thriving. She had a rough time with the anesthetic at her first trip to the vet, most likely because she was in such tough nutritional shape. At her last visit she bounced back quickly, and we're hoping that future trips will be similarly smooth.

Why a blog?

We brought Sushi and Saké home six days before we realized something was drastically wrong with Sushi's teeth. They were eight weeks old. Sushi was climbing down the front of the cage and I could see a tooth coming out of the front of her mouth, turning immediately to the left, and entering back in.

Sushi was easily half the size of her sister, so it wasn't surprising that there was something wrong, but once we realized it, we wanted immediate answers. There aren't a lot of people you can call on rat health at 9 p.m. though, so we started looking online. And while it was easy to find medical information, we didn't find any accounts of people managing this sort of condition in their rat.

The next day Sushi had her first visit with the vet. We learned she has severe malocclusion, which essentially means her top and bottom incisors do not line up. Sometimes trimming the teeth at an angle can help, but Sushi's case is far beyond this. Her bottom teeth grow to the right, her top to the left and never the twain shall meet. As a result, she is going to need dental care every few weeks for the rest of her life. Without it her teeth will grow into her skull and she will die.

We have learned a lot of practical things about caring for Sushi over the past two months and hope that by documenting what is going on with her, what it means practically in terms of care and expenses, as well as what it means for her quality of life, may help someone else who finds themselves in the same position we were in.

Besides, rats are hilarious! The internet needs more pictures of rats.

Ever up and onward!

Saké Says Hello

It would be hard to find a sweeter face.