Dentist or vet for suspected tooth abscess?

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Flint12

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My lad came in yesterday with a pussy lump under his jaw. I have had different people at my yard say it is an abscess, but others say it is an infected fly bite. I have never seen what a tooth abscess looks like, so im not 100% either way.

If it has not cleared up by tommorow, i was going to ring the dentist/vet, but im not sure.

Any opinions/ thoughts would be super.

Thanks

:)
 
If its a tooth abcess I don't think your horse would be able to eat at all. Its deffo a vet job as if its a tooth abcess it may have to be removed which could be a general anaesthetic.
 
Vet! Possibly will need dentist too but you sound like you're going to need antibiotics at the very least
 
thanks :) i will see how he is in the morning, he has been eating as normal, so i will see how he is.

Thankyou
 
If he's chewing normally, then probably not a tooth abcess (as they're bloody painful!) The most likely cause is that he's been rubbing his head on a fence post or rail and got a tiny splinter - with associated infection. I would hot foment couple of times a day - for 5 minutes at a time - using hand-hot water with a couple of tea-spoons of salt added. That will draw it out - and hopefully bring the splinter out too.
 
My horse is currently recovering from having a tooth removed, due to a tooth root abcess. Her only sympton was a firm, small swelling on her jaw. She showed no symptons of pain whatsoever and ate as normal. Vet suspected it was a root tooth abcess and gave her 2 weeks of antibiotics, which did nothing, so she had a skull x-ray which revealed the abcess. They tried to remove tooth under a standing sedation, but this was unsuccessful so she needed an operation to remove tooth (this unfortunately involved her having to have a hole cut thro the side of her jaw!!) I haven't heard of a root tooth abcess coming thro' to the outside of jaw, and would assume if it did, the tooth would appear or smell really rotten and the horse would show discomfort. Hopefully it is just a skin abcess and will clear up with antibiotics. Good luck.
 
Depends if it's me or the horse LOL.

I'd be calling the vet if it was the horse, esp seeing as how the lump is underneath the jaw. Good luck.
 
how old is your horse? sometimes if they are young and have teeth coming through they can have an erruption which can cause swellings, that is just treated with anti biotics and bute. contact the vet if it doesnt go down, my horse had an abcess under his mandable before i had him and it burst out of his throat area and he now has a nice big scar! he ended up going to horspital to have that treated. but that was before i had him so i couldnt tell you what it looked like, but he now has a small swelling in between his jaw that is permanantly there.
 
He is seven, and never had problems with his teeth when he was younger. It is not pussing today, but he really does not like me looking at it, it feels like a solid lump and then around that it feels squishy, and obv a bit sore/tender seeing as he doesnt like me touching it.

I will see how it is this eve and will do as suggested above.

Thanks for a advice :)
 
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