diastemas info please

jackessex

jackessex

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hi all i know this should be in vets but more people look on here
my boy (9 yrs) is in a bit of a bad way he was diagnosed with diastemas last yr and had the gaps widened which seemed to work,but he now has food packed again and has more diastemas and his gums are bleeding badly he is in a LOT of pain and has lost a lot of weight,he went back to vets yesterday and they found his mouth was a state??They worked on him for 3 hrs but felt it was to risky to keep him sedated for longer.The vet says he will have to be on 4 bute a day to keep him pain free :(
What i dont understand is why he hasnt had any antibiotics at all,even when he came back from newmarket last yr i was given no aftercare or antibiotics for him,which makes me think this is the reason it is so bad now,i have to decide whether to have him pts or not but feel i need all the facts first does any one have experience of this please??
 
No personal experience - but I thought you deserved a reply if only to bump your post up the forum! You might try cross posting into vets. There are posts about Diastema on the forum, and a little bit of advice on the web. The concensus seems to be to eliminate all long stem forage and replace with the various hay replacer type feeds - simple systems seem to have quite a few. And treatement from an EDT or vet every 3 - 6 months.

The information out there suggests it is entirely treatable; but becuase horse's teeth erupt constantly the treatment must be repeated regularly. It sounds to me manageable - but expensive.

Good luck
 
Shay said:
No personal experience - but I thought you deserved a reply if only to bump your post up the forum! You might try cross posting into vets. There are posts about Diastema on the forum, and a little bit of advice on the web. The concensus seems to be to eliminate all long stem forage and replace with the various hay replacer type feeds - simple systems seem to have quite a few. And treatement from an EDT or vet every 3 - 6 months.

The information out there suggests it is entirely treatable; but becuase horse's teeth erupt constantly the treatment must be repeated regularly. It sounds to me manageable - but expensive.

Good luck
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thankyou shay
i thought it had been delt with last yr (well 8 months ago) and was prepared for dentist visits more often but not being told 4 bute just to keep him from pain!!!it sounds like the gums are very infected yet they have still not mentioned antibiotics,when i researched it most horses have a 10 day course.
 
Get back in contact with your vet and ask why he hasn't been given antibiotics, if needed seek a second opinion. It IS manageable and if you can get the infection under control that will be a big help and he shouldn't need the bute full time. There are lots of hay replacers out there if you need to keep away from long fibre and I'm pretty sure a horse on a yard I was on had it and the owner used to clean it's mouth out once a day with a hose and a syringe of salt water and had the dentist every 3 months. Good luck.
 
Look at the post in veterinary I can't believe he has not had antibiotics you need to query and sort this .
My horse has had three lots of widening since September the last lot being at the Royal Dick .We seem to be on top of it now I was told in Edibburgh it is our job to get your horse eating hay happily.
Have they told you turn out helps enormously get him inthe field 24/7 while you work out what to do.I would query immediately why no antibiotics has he had X-rays a CT scan they are working in dark without these if his jaw or a tooth are infected there is no point in widening the Diastemas you have deal with that too.
This costs a lot of money my horse will need checking by the vet every ten weeks he will need further treatments and will eventully need a tooth removed hopefully when he's older.
 
The gums could be very inflamed but not infected. Unless there is a particular abscess then antibiotics probably not indicated. Antibiotics will NOT help pain, only infection. The food packing probably causes inflammation and periodontal disease which I guess is why the bute as an antiinflammatory and painkiller has been recommended.

Sounds like a difficult situation, hope things improve.
 
I read this very long thread on AL the other day and thought of you.

http://www.arabianlines.com/forum1/topic_new.asp?TOPIC_ID=37196

The horse that this thread was about was kept with a grey arab during her recovery. The grey had been at the Vet hospital because he'd had a tooth removed because of a diastema. Somewhere in the thread is a copy of his X-ray and a photo of the removed tooth. It might be worth joining AL and asking the owner of the grey about her experiances. :)
 
My Mums horse has this and has never had antibiotics etc - Just some bute but only after dental work.

The vets do his teeth every 3 months or as is necessary. He originally had the gaps made wider but was still having problems with it (getting hay stuck in his gums etc)so he has now had all the gaps filled. Since he has had this done he has had no problems with his teeth at all.
 
When I was at the royal Dick they showed me various skulls of horses who had had Diastemas these are not things to muck about with.
If I where you I would be looking at referral to a specialist vet as they see the difficult cases all the time.
 
Sounds very uncomfortable. I am not an animal tooth expert, but I am fairly expert on general human periodontal conditions. If the infection caused by food packing is not becoming a systemic infection antibiotics may not have a significant enough impact to justify their use. However it may be worth asking if the following options can be used on horses; topical antibiotic gels placed intra-orally, chlorhexidine washes/gels/chips or peroxyl based products. Failing that as mentioned above salt water may have some beneficial effects. I think that if your horse is in pain and not doing well they need to be doing more about it. Have you had a second opinion from a specific horse vet/ an excellent EDT, they may be more expert in management of this condition?
 
Certainly with my horse repeated doses of antibiotics was an important part of his treatment .
I asked several times about mouthwashes etc and was told although its good when dealing with them in the front teeth it's not effective in the back molars and the severity of my horses condition made it not even worth thinking about .
I was perfectly confident to use a gag myself and flush them if they taught me but was told it would be a waste of time.
 
hi all thankyou for the replys
ive just brought him back from the vet had a long chat about why no antibiotics and he said that it would be pointless as while the food is still packing down into the gaps it would continue to get infected and sore,also while i thought it was 4 diastemas it is now all the bottom teeth on both sides of his mouth :(
long term the best option the horse has is no long forage only short chop and me flushing out his teeth twice a day and as much bute as i feel he needs to keep him comfortable,how do you know when they are comfortable???he has shown no real signs of pain so far and he must be in a lot of pain!!at the moment the only real option for the poor boy i feel is pts,although just thinking about it kills me.
 
also what is the best forage replacer to give him?he is lami prone and in off grass untill the results for cushings etc come back.
 
I was lucky, just caught this in time with my mare, was touch and go whether we'd have to widen the gaps but on edt advice I religiously picked out the crap, wearing gloves, if ur pregnant u need to get someone else to do it, very dangerous bacteria, then syringe mouth and gaps with corsodyl twice a day, luckily ebonys gaps got less and less, but he never reccomending antibiotics as corsodyl kills all the nasties may not fix ur horse but may help with management and getting rid of the sore gums x sorry to hear ur having such problems, I hated seeing Ebs go through it
 
thankyou all for your replies but this morn he was much worse,refusing to eat anything and looked like he had just had enough,so i did the last thing i could do for him and pts.
 
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