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Anesthesia Free Dentals

A recent service that is now being offered in many veterinary hospitals are “Anesthesia Free Dentals” These consist of hand-scaling of the tartar by a trained individual who uses only manual restraint of the animal during this process which usually takes about 30 minutes or less. Due to the lack of anesthesia or other means of restraint, individuals who have painful teeth and or gums may not allow this anesthesia free dental scaling to be performed. Those individuals will need a general anesthetic agent to get their teeth cleaned and for any possible extractions.

Anesthesia Free Dentals (AFDs) can’t go as deep under the gum line of the animal’s teeth, thus not allowing for the deep gum pockets of the teeth to be completely cleaned out. Without getting that tartar out of the subgingival sulcus down deep under the gum and tooth line, the continued progression of periodontal disease is more likely. AFDs may lull pet owners into a false sense of confidence that these are as effective as the much deeper cleanings that are done under a general anesthetic agent.

Nonetheless, Boulder’s Natural Animal has been offering AFDs with Wanda Guitar for the past 4 years and we find that her services are gentle and effective in cleaning the more superficial of dental disease problems.  For those dogs and cats with ongoing dental problems twice annual AFDs will work better to keep its teeth and gums healthy.

The doctors at Boulder’s Natural Animal use the examination of your pet as an opportunity to see what level of dental disease it possesses, and to develop an effective plan to address long term its dental issues. It might be that your pet needs initially to have an anesthesia based dental cleaning and then with in home dental care and adjustments to diet and supplement programs, your pet with dental disease might then transition to having AFDs annually or biannually. Long-term preventative activities such as in-home cleaning the teeth with herbal or enzymatic dentifrices, and adding supplements to your animals food, such as CoEnzymeQ10, vitamin C, vitamins A&D, Neem, myrrh and Echinacea.

Call our receptionist and ask them to tell you more about this exciting new concept in dental care.