Chronic Sinus Problems?tooth related

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siant2

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I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice or reassurance regarding my mare and her ongoing sinus problems. She appears to be quite a complex case.

She presents with a 3 month history of nasal discharge out of the right nostril. This varies in color, from clear to white to green/yellow. Is always present on exercise and after eating her feed. Rarely at rest. She had a full blown sinus infection a month ago which was treated by having a drain in her head and regular flushes along with antibiotics.

Nasal discharge now is still present although less smelly and less in volume than when she had the full blown sinus infection and has shown no improvement since the symptoms first started 3 months ago. She had her head xrayed and showed a very slight possible chance of her 4th check tooth infection.

The vet is reluctant to remove the tooth as they are not sure this is the cause and explained that there is a high chance of complications due to the position of the tooth.

I was wondering if anybody has had experience of having a back lower tooth removed and what was the outcome?

Do people think I should be pushing for the tooth to be removed?? As the vets have failed to come up with any other solution........

She is due for more investigations next week but my gut says that the problem is this tooth (NB mare headshaker in bitted bridle but no headshaking in bitless bridle)

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated
 
My now 11yr old had this problem from the age of 2 until he was 4yrs.

He presented with sinus infections, firstly quite far apart, and then closer together until it was almost permanent. Each time he had antib's which would clear it for a while.

Eventually just before he was 4 he went for scoping/xrays and they discovered it was a tooth problem. As it had gone on for so long there was no choice but to remove 2 teeth, 4 and 5 at the top. I'm suprised a lower tooth would cause sinus probs tho.

There were a few probs after the op, but he got over them in the end, and has never had a prob since. He has to have the two opposing lower teeth burred every couple of years as they are now unopposed (so dont wear down), and he doesn't like strong wind on his face. the only outward sign is a rather obvious dent in his head where the bone flap was. It become more obvious the older he gets.

Hope this helps
 
Thanks for your reply. I will have to wait and see what the vets are going to do with her when i take her to the clinic next week! Hope it dosnt take too long to sort her as she is getting more and more headshy and less interested in her hay and feed!!!
 
Poor girl! My boy has a long history of sinus problems. He's been oparated on at least 4 times uner GA and like Britestar's horse has a big dent on his head. I know he had sinus problems at 2 years old when he was racing. I last hadhim operated on 2 years ago when my vet took xrays and decided a cracked tooth could be the problem and why he was getting repeated infections and abscesses in his sinus. He had lots of antibiotic treatments before the last operation. The tooth which was cracked was an upper one and would have come through when he was abour 18 months old I believe so if that tooth had been removed sooner he may not have had so many problems. I haven't heard of a lower tooth causing sinus problems either.

Mine also had a few problems after the op. lots more antibiotics. Had to have a drain in again. Eventually flushing with an antibacterial wash seemed to help. I think he will always be susceptable to sinus problems but since the last op has been much better. I have to keep an eye on his teeth especially the one below the missing tooth as it doesn't wear down and I always feed from the floor to help anything drain out if there is anything in there.
 
My boy had a tooth removed as it was causing sinusitus - the tooth was cracked, He was flushed and stitched up afterwards but unfortunatly the infection returned quite soon. He then had a bone flap operationd one as the infection had built up massively and this cleared it up for a while but it has returned again. I took him to Rainbow Equine clinic in Yorkshire ( a 5 hour drive!) for a CT scan as this is the only place in the country where they do standing sedation. The infection is now centered around the root of a healthy tooth so we have opted to leave it as the vet says that he would have to be so aggressive in further surgery to remove all infection that he would do massive damage to the structures of the face. We have him on 20g of pottasium idoide per day which is effective against fungal infections and it does help, although his breath always smells. However, horses are suspetable to idodine overdose quickly so I have to keep an eye out for symptoms and stop the dose for a week. He does not really seem depressed with the infection but cannot work as hard as he should be able to.

I would check for something like a CT scan as the vet can use it to look for damage to teeth and tissue, including small holes etc. I hope you sort this problem out with your mare. The London Equine hospital offer full anasetic (sp!) CT scans and I think Rossdales in Newmarket have started them now as well.
 
My boy had chronic sinus problems for about 5 years, it started with discharge down both nostrils so had antibiotics, improved a bit but just would not go away. Had him scoped and x-rayed and the vet said he had an ethmoidal haematoma in his sinus, so had op to remove the haematoma (was told after the op that it had been successfully removed but thats not to say there may not be a further deep seated problem there that caused this in the first place), then had drain in his head which we had to flush for a month, drain removed then he was absolutely fine for about a year, he then started to get the discharge again, so we went through the same process, antibiotics after antibiotics, x-rays, scoping but this time he had a swelling on his face just above his eye that would keep going up and down, the vets just could not understand what was going on, they obviously did not want to operate on him again just to see what was going on in there as the x-rays showed up nothing and as it is major surgery not something to do willy nilly. The vets at Rossdale's were just baffled, Tim Greet told us he had never seen anything like it before, anything so complex and unexplained.Anyway the horse seemed happy enough in himself until he started to get discharge through the actually scar hole where the drain pipe was before, so went for more x-rays and what showed up was a cyst in his sinus, so we had no option but to have another operation to remove the cyst, this was done but unfortunately the cyst had grown into the brain cavity and upon removal nerves became damaged. We had him home, but he was never the same and after two weeks I just couldn't see my precious boy be in so much pain, he was permanently on ACP and he was so unhappy so I had him put to sleep.

Sorry for being negative, but it may not be a tooth problem at all, all i know is that my horse baffled the best vets in the country with his problem and they may never see another such extreme case again, but on the other hand hopefully my horses problem will help them in the future.

Hope you get it resolved.
 
hi just wondering what the outcome was ?as ive just had my 28yr old TB gelding have 2 back teeth out under sedation and he had a huge abcess ...does anyone know how long it will take to totally drain?
 
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