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Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on April 13, 2011 at 11:13pm

It is a waste of money and dangerous to your pet. We were just talking about it in school the other day. Some things to consider 1) I have seen on 2 occasions dogs coming to the vet I worked at after an anesthesia free teeth cleaning with broken teeth due to the cleaning, 2) anesthesia free does not allow them to polish the teeth so what you get is plaque scraped off and a very rough surface resulting in a quicker and worse accumulation of gunk AFTER the cleaning. The teeth need to be polished after a cleaning to prevent this build up. 3) I don't care who you talk to, having your dog held down by 2 or three people while somebody (who 9 times out of 10 is unlicensed) pries open his mouth and scrapes is VERY traumatic. 4) as previously mentioned, almost all the people who do anesthetic free teeth cleaning are unlicensed meaning they have NO IDEA what they are doing and in some states are operating illegally.5) You can't clean under and around the gums with anesthesia free, so much of the bacteria and plaque is left behind....I could go on and on....

I'd have a serious discussion with your vet before you decide to go the anesthesia free route. Some vets will hand scale the teeth in the room if you ask them to. It may make their teeth look better but is creating more problems in the long run.

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Permalink Reply by Kim on April 14, 2011 at 12:41am

Thanks so much for your response.  I wasn't exactly sure what was bothering me about it, but everything you said made a lot of sense.  Probably, that old adage "If it sounds too good to be true it probably is" fits here.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on April 14, 2011 at 12:54am

I asked our breeder about this last night. She said she didn't even know anybody who's doing unanesthetized cleaning around here (Seattle). She also remarked -- my dentist told me much the same thing -- that there is huge variation in mouth chemistry and how often teeth need cleaning; my dentist said some people need cleaning every 6 months, whereas I got away fine with just brushing/flossing for 4-5 years.
She also said that you can find vets doing anesthetized cleaning for $100-$120.

A related question is: how often do dogs suffer complications from anesthesia...? Is it always isofluorane...? Gwynnie had nausea/vomiting after her spaying, that may be unusual...

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Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on April 14, 2011 at 12:52pm

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Isoflourane is actually an incredibly safe anesthesia. There used to be others out there like halothane that caused A LOT of problems. Isoflourane is flushed from the body very quickly and is not processed by any major organs, just the lungs, but it does not enter the blood stream. Injectable anesthesia like Ketamine and Propofol can cause more problems. Although propofol is relatively safe too, only thing with the injectables is they are processed by liver and kidneys so if there are any underlying problems in those organs then they may have a reaction. That is why the pre-anesthetic bloodwork is sooooooooo important. It lets the doctor know if the dog is fit and healthy for anesthesia. And the IV fluids for older dogs or longer procedures help to flush the anesthetic from their systems. It is common after a surgery for a pet to have vomiting/diarrhea for a day or two. If the doctor knows ahead of time they can give an injection to help with that, or you can just feed a bland diet for a couple of days and they should be fine. Sometimes its the pain meds that cause the nausea and sometimes its the anesthesia itself.

In the 3 years I worked at a specialty vet hospital (where animals are often having surgery when REALLY sick) and the 1 year in vet tech school I have only one time see a dog die from anesthesia and in that case the doctor and owner after some investigating figured out the dog had eaten snail bait before the procedure. The owners had declined pre-anesthetic bloodwork that would have caught the poison in his system, and as such, he ended up dying on the surgery table during a routine neuter. That is why I can't stress enough the importance of the bloodwork.

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Permalink Reply by Kim on April 14, 2011 at 1:58pm

The information on the types of anesthesia and how they work is really helpful.  At least now I feel like I can have a more educated conversation with my vet about this.  It's not the monetary part that bothers me about going to the vet for the cleaning, I just hate that I have to take him first thing in the morning and then I don't get him back until 5pm at night.  But now I understand why they do that...they are being thorough. 

Since you seem to know a lot about this anesthesia stuff, is it normal for Tobey to come out less than his generally perky self?  Sometimes he's kind of wobbly.  How long does it take for the Isoflourane (assuming that's what they use) to get fully out of his system?

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