Snaggletooth

I'd noticed late last week that Saké's face seemed a bit fatter than usual. Saturday night she was napping in a box with her head at just the right angle for me to glimpse what was going on - she had a really long bottom right incisor. We've noticed that as she's gotten older, her teeth don't line up quite as well as they used to. In this case the bottom incisor now was angling just enough to no longer get ground down by the incisor above it.

I figured she would have to wait until we could get her to the vet yesterday, but Dave had other ideas and pulled out a pair of nail clippers. Now, we both have read enough about malocclusion to know that you can trim a rat's tooth in a pinch but I didn't think that meant you actually should. Dave was pretty confident though and a few minutes later, after I finally managed to not only hold Saké still but also open her mouth, the tooth was snipped.

Saké after her trimming

We're keeping an eye on her, but so far she seems to be doing terrifically without that long, sharp tooth!

Surgery!

Today is the day! Thanks to a voicemail mixup, we didn't get a lot of time to stress over Sushi's surgery. Instead we found out last night that she is having her upper and lower incisors removed today!



She'll come home later today on antibiotics and pain medications. The surgery carries some danger that I find scary - she may not handle the anesthetic well, or her jaw may break when they pull her teeth out - but if things go well, this should drastically improve her quality of life.



Sushi will be a year old in almost three weeks. I'll be glad to close this teeth chapter and move on to her living her life in more than three and a half week increments.

I don't think I'm the only one who will be happy to have this over.

Sushi's Teeth

This picture isn't very good, but it's important.

Do you see that large block Sushi is chewing on? It's monkey chow. Sushi can only eat monkey chow after she has her teeth trimmed, because otherwise it's too hard/big for her to break pieces off of. That picture was taken a few hours after Sushi's teeth were trimmed last week.

Her teeth trimming went well. She's at 238 grams. Her weight is pretty steady these days, and I don't expect we're going to see her get any bigger. She is ten months old.

We did receive amazing news from our vet. We've decided to go ahead with the surgery to pull all of Sushi's incisors. This is a drastic step but will overall improve her quality of life. Right now her upper incisors appear to be dying and her lower incisors are loose and wiggly, making eating difficult. Not to mention that she has to go under anesthetic once a month to get her incisors trimmed, something that is more dangerous each time.

Last month we received a quote for the surgery - $450-600, depending on how it goes. At Sushi's appointment last week though, our vet offered to do the surgery for cost. Essentially, we pay for her anesthesia and her medications and the clinic will cover the rest of the expenses. Why? Because they appreciate that we are willing to do the right thing for her, and have done everything we can for her up to this point.

That is amazing news. A huge thank you to everyone at Cedar Creek Veterinary Clinic and especially to Dr. Derek Nolan for helping us to get Sushi the care she needs. Her surgery will be next month.

Sushi's a pretty special rat.

Rat Ingenuity?

I witnessed something the other night that may have been a clear example of rat intelligence, or it may just be that I am overreacting.

Due to her teeth, Sushi has problems eating very hard food, such as lab blocks. She has a lot of other food options and gets enough to eat, and usually only eats lab blocks immediately after her teeth are trimmed.

Last night I noticed that Sushi was hanging out in the area of the cage by the water bottle and there were a couple of lab blocks laying underneath the bottle. As I watched, she used her shoulder to repeatedly bump into the end of the water bottle, causing drops of water to fall out. The water fell out onto her perfectly aligned lab block laying below it. She wasn't playing or moving around during this time, causing her to hit the bottle inadvertently. She was staying still and just repeatedly touching the end of it.

Once the lab block was fairly soaked, she very carefully scraped off the top half or so, which was completely saturated. She ate this while sitting there, and then carried the remaining damp but not soaked lab block to her nest. She ate the rest of the wet block at that point.

I might be crazy. Or, I might have watched Sushi soften her food so that she could eat it.

Sushi's Terrible Teeth

I managed to get a picture of Sushi's teeth from the front last night which illustrates how sharply her teeth turn to the sides, as well as how far apart the top and bottom are from ever meeting.

This picture is fairly grainy, but you can see the dark orange upper incisors (pointing toward Sushi's left) and her lower incisors pointing into her right cheek. At no point do the upper and lower teeth touch.

She returns to the vet later this week and I'm curious what he will say about the color of the upper incisors. The pinkish hue has spread lower into them, and last month he said that the color indicated the teeth were dying. That could make it easier for her when it comes time to pull the teeth entirely, but it could complicate things until that time. Poor girl. I hate that she has to go through this.

Regardless of her teeth, Sushi still enjoys eating!

An Update on Sushi's Teeth

When I took pictures of the girls and their bag of treats the other night, I also managed to get a couple of shots of Sushi's teeth. She is at four weeks and needs her teeth trimmed soon.

Sushi's Teeth

Sushi went to the vet last week for another teeth trimming. One of her front incisors has turned a funny pink color, and it looks likely that the tooth is dying. That isn't a good sign overall, but it does mean it might be easier to remove when they pull all of her incisors.

We are definitely going ahead with surgery, as soon as we have the $400-600 that it is going to take. Even though it is expensive, it will not only improve the quality of her life, but also remove the current risk she faces each month when she goes under anesthetic. Poor girl.

Sushi at an earlier vet visit.

Teeth Update

Sushi's visit to the vet yesterday was pretty uneventful. She is at 245 grams, up from 221 grams 32 days ago. She's small but she's still growing slowly, and overall she looks pretty good.

Regardless of her teeth, she's adorable.

Back to the Vet

Sushi returns to the vet today to get her teeth trimmed. It's been 32 days since her last visit, which is the longest she's gone since we got her in December. I don't think she could make it much longer.

Upper incisors twist toward her left, lower incisors to her right.

A view of the upper incisors.

Such a sweet girl. I hate that she has to go through this so frequently.

Back to the Vet

Sushi has an appointment for her teeth again this afternoon. It has been four weeks since her last visit. It's easy to keep an eye on her upper incisors, since they turn and grow outside of her mouth now, but I worry about her bottom ones. They still angle into her right cheek and it's hard to keep tabs on how long they are. I'll be relieved after she gets them all trimmed today.

Sushi's upper incisors poking out of her mouth.

Sushi's Tooth

Sushi needs to get to the vet this week. It will be four weeks since her last teeth trimming on Friday. Her upper incisors are outside of her upper lip on the left now, and her right cheek is starting to poke out a bit from her lower incisors. She's still eating like a beast though.

Sushi's not purposely holding her mouth open in this shot - her teeth are doing it for her.

Sushi's Tooth

Sushi goes to the vet this afternoon. It has been just under four weeks since her last visit. She has made it a couple of days longer than in the past, and I think this is due in large part to the way her upper incisors have grown. Instead of pushing into her gums, they are growing outside of her lip.

Sushi's upper incisors are clearly visible.

I am not sure if this is because of how her teeth were trimmed at her last appointment or if it is just a result of how her teeth are growing in general. It does seem to have been a better situation for her though - she hasn't dropped any weight the last couple of days and seems to be eating normally, although slowly.

A closer look makes the incisors' issues more evident.

I am curious to hear the vet's thoughts on this change in growth pattern.

Teeth Trimming Pt. 1

We have a ton of great pictures from Sushi's visit to the vet yesterday and I will probably share them over the next few days. My hope is that if someone has a rat with severe malocclusion and finds this blog, these pictures will give them an idea of what to expect. We had no idea what was going to happen the first time Sushi's teeth were trimmed. Now I'm beginning to feel like a pro.

The worst part of the trip to the vet is waiting. I'm not sure if this is worse for Sushi or I.

Sushi hangs out in her carrier.

Actually, the worst part might be handing her over. She's so tiny compared to everything else in the room.

Immediately after this picture she tried to escape via my scarf.

Sushi was given a pretty thorough exam prior to getting knocked out. Watching the vet listen to her heart with a stethoscope was pretty comical, not to mention palpating her abdomen.

Sushi was less than cooperative for the exam.

Once it was time to knock her out, Sushi fell asleep pretty quickly.

First few seconds of gas.

Starting to slow down...

And she's out!

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the actual teeth trimming. In the meantime, if you are reading this and wondering just how severe Sushi's malocclusion is, this should give you a good idea:

This is only three and a half weeks of growth!

Back to the Vet

It's been 3.5 weeks since Sushi's last teeth trimming. Back to the vet in the morning for another one.

She hasn't dropped any weight yet but I think we're right on the verge of her being unable to eat properly. She spending a lot of time licking her food before she eats it, and that seems to be an indicator that things are worsening.

Hopefully the vet will let us take pictures. In the meantime, here's a cell phone picture of the adorable little girl begging:

Sushi never misses a chance for a handout.

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!