Sometimes, keeping your pet's chompers healthy can feel like a big job. Luckily, our practice provides advanced veterinary dentistry services in addition to basic dental care.
This includes routine care such as cleaning, along with treating more complicated conditions. Because our pets don’t brush their teeth every night before bed as we do, tartar can firmly adhere to their teeth.
In order to remove this tartar, we perform dental scaling, our most basic dental procedure. During the scaling process, we use sonic and ultrasonic power scalers as well as handheld instruments to remove this tartar from the surface of the teeth both above and below the gum line.
Tooth extraction is another very common procedure. Our goal is for your pet to retain as many teeth as possible. However, sometimes an extraction is the only option to relieve pain or ensure that periodontal disease does not advance. If not extracted, a diseased tooth can compromise the surrounding tissue and neighboring teeth. If caught early, there are more treatment options available for periodontal disease.
Our practice requires anesthesia for dental procedures. Because of this, we first perform a full physical exam and sometimes run blood tests. Inside the mouth, we utilize anesthetic gel and local anesthetic injections to reduce pain. We closely monitor your pet the entire time.
We keep an eye on the oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide levels in your pet's blood along with blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature. In order to help maintain the health of your pet’s mouth and teeth, you should bring your pet in for a dental check-up once a year. During these routine exams, our practice includes a general dental exam as well as teeth and gum cleaning if needed.
Catching dental problems in the early stages can greatly help your pet in the long run. Contact us right away if your pet experiences any of the following:
- Chronic bad breath
- Your pet shies away when you try to touch their mouth area
- Excessive drooling
- Dropping food when eating
- Bleeding in your pet’s mouth
- Loss of appetite or weight loss
- Yellowish-brown crust of tartar around the gum line
- Missing, loose, or broken teeth
Pearland Animal Hospital’s dental services include routine cleanings/polishing, dental extractions, oral surgery, and digital dental radiography (x-rays). Our trained technicians perform routine dental cleanings daily. We also have a wide variety of veterinary-approved dental care products for maintenance and preventative care.
At Pearland Animal Hospital we not only perform dental procedures, but we also provide a COHAT.
So, what is “COHAT”? Comprehensive Oral Health Assessment and Treatment: $400 flat rate.
The purpose of a Comprehensive Oral Health Assessment is to identify any modifying factors, including both risk and protective factors, that will contribute to the assessment of the patient’s risk of oral disease and inform the needed care for the patient. And Treatment is just that, treatment.
What exactly do our patients get with a COHAT?
Dental Exam, Clean & Polish
Digital Dental Radiographs
OraVet Sealant Treatment
Surgical Support
Anesthesia
Every COHAT comes with Digital Dental Radiograph (“X-Ray) images of teeth and gums to identify problems, like cavities, tooth decay, and impacted teeth. Without these images, we can only identify problems above the gum line, and missing sub-gingival issues can delay further needed medical treatment for the patient. Your veterinarian may find problems during the imaging that IS NOT included on the COHAT pricing such as needed extractions. If your veterinarian finds that additional care is needed, he or she will call you to discuss additional treatment needed and additional pricing before proceeding.
Also included in the COHAT is the OraVet Sealant Treatment which binds to tooth enamel creating a barrier to prevent plaque-forming bacteria.
Bloodwork is NOT included in the COHAT.