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"Anesthesia-Free Dentistry"
Monday, February 18, 2019
  By: Kingsdale Animal Hospital  In: Pet Health

Since it is dental month, this blog post discusses a question that comes up frequently when we discuss dental health in pets.

"I found someone that can clean my pet's teeth without anesthesia - can I have them clean their teeth?"

This refers to process of Anesthesia-Free Dentistry, also known as Non-Anesthetic Dental or Non-Professional Dental Scaling. Since some pet owners have concerns about general anesthesia, they often find the concept of Anesthesia-Free Dentistry appealing. However, there are numerous animal welfare and health concerns associated with this type of procedure. Why?

(1) Dental tartar is bacteria that is firmly adhered to the surface of the tooth. To remove it requires an ultrasonic scaler and sharp hand scalers. For the vast majority of pets (and people), proper removal of tartar above and below the gumline can be uncomfortable or even painful. Especially if your pet doesn't like what is going on, they are much more likely to move, which may cause the instrument to cut their gums or the handler to get bitten. Even slight movements can cause the instruments to slip and lead to worse trauma to the tissue and pain to the pet.
(2) The most important place to remove tartar is in the subgingival area - the area just below the surface of the gumline along the edge of each tooth. Bacteria here leads to the most severe dental infections, abscesses, and sources of pain. For humans, this is uncomfortable or painful but most people cooperate for the cleaning in the end. For animals, it is impossible to clean this area on an awake patient. It is too painful and they will not sit still. Thus these services that provide anesthesia-free dental cleanings never clean those areas. These services only remove the tartar on the crown of the tooth (the visible surface), which has little benefit to the pet's health. The bacteria still lies beneath the surface. Thus these procedures are only cosmetic. They only make the tooth look nice, they don't do anything for your pet's health.


(3) People that provide anesthesia-free dental cleanings are NOT veterinarians and are NOT licensed to practice veterinary medicine. If your pet has a wiggly tooth, dental abscess, periodontal disease, or a broken tooth, they will not be able to diagnose or treat the problem. They also cannot do a complete oral health exam on your pet or identify sources of pain or infection.


In short, the American Veterinary Dental College considers anesthesia-free dental cleanings to be animal abuse and fraud, because it is painful and does not address the underlying medical issue but leads pet owners to believe that they are providing a good service for their pets even though the bacteria and infection still lies below the surface of the gumline.

The image above is from Dr. Hale, a Veterinary Dental Specialist in Guelph. It shows the before and after pictures of a dog in Guelph who had anesthesia-free dental cleanings regularly for years. The dog's veterinarian in Guelph noticed periodontal disease (causing bad breath and oral pain) in this dog's mouth and referred the dog to Dr. Hale. The picture on the left is what the dog's teeth looked like with the tartar on it after the last anesthesia-free dental cleaning. The picture on the right shows what the dog's teeth and gums looked like after Dr. Hale removed the tartar. The bacteria that sat below the gumline (unaddressed by the anesthesia-free dental cleanings) for years degraded the gum and bone so much that the roots were exposed which is extremely painful. Dr. Hale had to extract 34 teeth from this dog's mouth due to end stage periodontal disease. After the dental extractions, the owners reported that the dog was feeling better than he had in years.


Why is anesthesia the safer, better method to clean a pet's teeth?
(1) When a pet is under anesthetic for a dental cleaning, an endotracheal tube is place into their throat to protect their airway from aspirating water. Because the patient is anesthetized, they do not feel any pain associated with the dental scaling or polishing. A proper scaling, including scaling the subgingival area below the gumline, can be done. Finally, the dental disease itself is medically treated, leading to a happier and healthier pet! Remember, the anesthesia-free dental cleanings don't treat the dental disease, so if your pet has an infected or painful tooth, it will remain infected or painful with an anesthesia-free dental cleaning.
(2) At Kingsdale we provide a number of safety measures to help ensure your pet does well under anesthesia. We always place an intravenous catheter prior to the dentistries to ensure IV access. We use the IV catheter to provide intravenous fluids to your pet as well. This helps maintain their blood pressure and metabolize the anesthetics smoothly. We also have two Registered Veterinary Technicians who perform all of our dental cleanings. We also recommend doing full mouth dental x-rays at that time. These x-rays look at each tooth above and below the surface for any infection, inflammation, broken teeth, damages, abscesses, or resportive lesions. Furthermore, while your pet is under anesthesia, we are constantly monitoring their heart rate, breathing rate, oxygen levels, and blood pressure. We anesthetize many patients here regularly, including senior and geriatric animals, and those with other medical conditions including heart disease and kidney disease. We select specific anesthetic protocols depending on the age and medical status of your pet. As previously mentioned, your pet is monitored the entire time while under anesthesia by a Registered Veterinary Technician.

Parts of this blog were adapted from the American Veterinary Dental College Position Statement on Non-Professional Dental Scaling.


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