CT Diastemata

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K_T

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My friend's horse has been diagnosed with diastemata. The vet said she's probably had it for months and she's in a lot of pain. He is coming back next Monday to drill out larger spaces between the affected teeth. Has anyone else's horse experienced this and was the treatment successful?
 
If this is what I think it is - where the teeth are too close together and food gets trapped causing infection - then yes! My friends pony lost loads of weight quite quickly, wouldn't eat hay and hard feed. His gums were infected and he went to Bristol vet school where he had the spaces (or lack of!) drilled out and was put on antibiotics. He responded really well, started eating almost straight away and putting weight back on. They did say to keep an eye on him in case it recurrs, but so far (18 months on) there have been no more problems.

Hope that helps!
 
diastema is actually the space between the teeth and the problems arise when long fibre is caught here causing impactions. The only viable way of fixing it is to make the spaces bigger by burring the teeth. It sounds absolutely horrible and the poor mare will have to be heavily sedated.
 
I think that it is the same thing - the pony had food jammed between his teeth which caused the infections - I didn't decribe it very well! The pony coped very well with the procedure and follow up treatment of antibiotics and painkillers for a short time and started putting on weight almost straight away again. he has his teeth checked regularly, and fingers crossed, all seems ok to date!

All the best for you and your mare!
 
Oh, I'm glad it cleared up. Jules lives for her food so hopefully she'll get back to munching her hay with gusto again! Thanx
 
My pony has this problems with her incisors. I keep them clean, I find if you go to a human dentist and ask for one of their tooth pick type things that are metal, these are really good.
 
[ QUOTE ]
My friend's horse has been diagnosed with diastemata. The vet said she's probably had it for months and she's in a lot of pain. He is coming back next Monday to drill out larger spaces between the affected teeth. Has anyone else's horse experienced this and was the treatment successful?

[/ QUOTE ]

A 3 year old of mine developed two diastemas as a result of badly retained caps which forced the molars to grow apart. It was several months before the caps could be safely removed and in the interim he lost LOADS of weight - he just couldn't eat properly. At last inspection one had closed up, and the other was smaller but he'd developed some sharp edges because of uneven wear (they'd only been rasped 3 months earlier!) So he was rasped again, and within a couple of weeks he was putting on weight and has continued to improve so I'm HOPING that the second one will have closed up too.

In an older horse, it's more of a problem - but treatment SHOULD give a reasonable result although the horse will need its mouth checking much more frequently than normal.
 
Well, friend's mare had her teeth done yesterday, all six!! The vet was saying it's the most he's done on one horse in one go. She behaved perfectly as well and didn't get stressed with the drilling. She'll be on painkillers for a few days and is eating so hopefully she'll make a full recovery.
 
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