EORTH (Equine Odontoclastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis)

[Toby_Zaphod]

We had dental technician out to check our 3 horses. All went well until she checked out the mouth of our 18 year old. She said she can't do anything for him, he needs a vet. Technician told us our boy had got EORTH. This was the first time I'd heard of it & it is quite scary. Unfortunately there is no known treatment at this time to help prevent this from happening. The treatment for affected teeth is extraction based on staging of lesions present radiographically. As the disease progresses, the roots of the incisors (and sometimes canines) start to resorb, or basically dissolve. We took the horse to the vets & after examining him & taking X-rays the vet agreed he'd got it. As a result over the last 3 weeks or so our boy had a total of 10 teeth our. They were the front incisors, none of the molars at the back. It was obviously done under sedation & done on 2 visits. He's had his 2nd visit & he's now getting over it. His gums were stitched up & he coping better than I thought, Gums are healing & hardening & he's eating hay in the stable eating grass in his paddock.

I'd never heard of EORTH as with other persons I've chatted to. If your horse is diagnosed with it it's not the end, the horse can get over it. Don't beat yourself up because you cannot prevent the disease. Our horse was being ridden & he showed no pain or discomfort, the visiting Dental Tech found it. We are told that once his gums are healing we can ride him with normal bit. At moment we've end told to use a Hackamore.

Just thought you all need to know about it.

 

[ycbm]

I'm sorry your horse got this nasty disease and needed surgery.

If anyone has a horse worth this it might help to search for Lady Gascoyne's posts about EORTH, she's done a wonderful job improving her mare's condition.
.

 

[milliepops]

Hope he's more comfortable soon.

My dentist suspects one of my oldies has the very early stages, horse is long retired so if it progresses I will pts. Apparently a good test of the integrity of the incisors is to offer the horse a carrot that they have to bite off. Happily the horses are all on board with this idea.

I know someone whose competition horse recently had his teeth out for this reason and seems to be much happier now.

 

[poiuytrewq]

My loan horse had/has it. He’s actually retired and back with my friend now. He had it badly. He’s now totally toothless in front. It was a very expensive long, if I’m honest quite difficult process.
I absolutely cannot recommend enough the Equine dental clinic. They have a fb page, the main guy Chris is incredibly helpful and did the best job on our horse. Including cleaning up the mess the vets made.
They are based in Devon (or Dorset?) but travel round.
Some of the video clips on their page are actually of my loan horses treatment.

 

[poiuytrewq]

Nb, my old horse isn’t retired due to his teeth. He has been in work since.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

I normally have an independent dental technician & it was ours that said we needed the vet. At our vet there is a guy that only does dental treatment, we'd not used him before but he's been really good. So fa the top teeth gums have healed up well. The lowere teeth were taken out recently, they're healing but got a way to go. Our boy has got all his molars & to be hones, the procedure hasn't prevented him grazing. We've made is feeds a little more moist, added some speedibeat to it & he eats without issue. For the next few weeks his treat won't be grass nuts he's having half a banana & he loves it.

 

[poiuytrewq]

Sounds like you got lucky with your vet! Mine, trying to remove teeth managed to fracture several and leave bits floating round in the gums.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

The only issue he seems to have had is some feed gets trapped in the cavity where the teeth have been removed. We've been told that his gums are healing quickly and this issue will stop. I'm glad because at the moment his breath is not AS FRAGRANT AS IT SHOULD BE.

 

[windand rain]

We were advised to wash out the cavity of a removed tooth with dilute mouthwash it improved the breath smell no end

 

[LadyGascoyne]

I'm sorry your horse got this nasty disease and needed surgery.

If anyone has a horse worth this it might help to search for Lady Gascoyne's posts about EORTH, she's done a wonderful job improving her mare's condition.
.

Thanks ycbm, that’s nice of you to say.

OP, we opted not to go straight to surgery due to the mare’s age and some other complications. We could end up there though.

What I have done is to concentrate on the autoimmune aspect and reduce inflammation. That might be useful for your horse too.

I’ve sort of gone with my gut on a lot of things and done heaps of reading.

I’ve removed as much sugar as is possible from her diet, due to links between sugar and inflammation. She gets speedibeet, linseed and meadow grass chaff. She is also a very itchy horse although not what I’d call sweet itch as it doesn’t appear to be midge related. That also made me think about inflammation being a problem for her.

In quite a few of the studies that I read, I noticed that a high proportion of study participants had a history of colic. It seems logical to me that the digestive system would be linked to the mouth and feeding processes, and certainly the latter has an effect on digestion. I have worked on gut health so I make sure she always has access to forage and either has plenty of good quality, local hay or is grazing. I try to encourage diverse pasture so they have access to different grasses. We have lots of dandelion too. I keep them out as much as possible - usually 24/7 but towards the end of winter they did come in for a few hours here and the

I don’t touch her teeth except to gently clear them, and I usually use a bit of peppermint oil on my finger to soothe and reduce the smell. Dentist comes every 3 months but now will come every 6 months due to improvement.

In terms of supplements, I feed brewers yeast, and a combination of mint, nettle and burdock to support digestion and itchiness. I also feed D&H Placid which contains chamomile, lemon balm, vervain and magnesium. Chamomile, lemon balm and magnesium are all supposed to support digestion as well as promote calmness, and I figured that supporting anxiety reduction has got to help with recovery anyway.

The progression has slowed down, although it isn’t linear. Towards the end of winter she struggled to get at the short grass so we went backwards a bit. It’s coming right again now that we’ve had some warmer weather and rain, and she’s grazing happily.

These show the improvement in 9 months. I’ll take another today, as it has now been a year.

 

[southerncomfort]

I have a mini shetland who my vet thinks may be in the very early stages of this.

I must admit to being a bit daunted. Though I do know of a horse who had all his front teeth removed due to severe gingivitis and he copes marvellously, although his owner has had to put a note on the gate explaining why his tongue hangs out!

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

We took our boy to the vets on Friday for the dental guy to check him over. The vet was very pleased with they way everything is healing and to find out he goes in the paddocks & grazes normally. The whole episode is scary for the horse owner but it isn't the end by any means. Our boy has got two front upper teeth, a bit like a rabbit, and no bottom front teeth. He still has his molars for grinding up hay, grass, feed and when the lower gums have healed they will harden off and he'll cope well. As for the tongue hanging out, it does sometimes but he used to do that a long time ago competing in dressage & he used to get marked down for it.

It's not great to find out your horse has this issue but you do the best you can for your horse. Ours is being ridden & going well riding in a hackamore & in about 2 weeks we'll go back to his normal bit. Life carries on.

 

[brighteyes]

We took our boy to the vets on Friday for the dental guy to check him over. The vet was very pleased with they way everything is healing and to find out he goes in the paddocks & grazes normally. The whole episode is scary for the horse owner but it isn't the end by any means. Our boy has got two front upper teeth, a bit like a rabbit, and no bottom front teeth. He still has his molars for grinding up hay, grass, feed and when the lower gums have healed they will harden off and he'll cope well. As for the tongue hanging out, it does sometimes but he used to do that a long time ago competing in dressage & he used to get marked down for it.

It's not great to find out your horse has this issue but you do the best you can for your horse. Ours is being ridden & going well riding in a hackamore & in about 2 weeks we'll go back to his normal bit. Life carries on.

Son is an EDT so I'm pretty up to date with 'things that can happen to horse teeth' and have access to a specialist dental vet so am in a good position for teeth. It's a vet job from suspicion stage and another reason to have regulars check ups. Hope your horse continues to thrive - I suspect it varies between individuals and costs (pragmatics) and I wouldn't judge anyone for not even going out of their way from diagnosis, especially if not insured.