Painkillers

[anarchysnail]

I took my girl in to the vet on Friday because she had an abscess on her cheek. While the vet was examining her he found a scab under her chin with what looked like something sticking out of it. They anesthetized her and looked at it and turns out it was one of her incisors! Apparently it never stopped goring like it was supposed to and grew so long that it was puncturing the bottom of her jaw!

This is how big the tooth is for reference:

As you can tell, they removed the tooth, drained the abscess and sutured her up. They sent me home with five syringes of painkillers and antibiotics for her which have been very difficult to give to her (oral medications with a mouth injury?? I can imagine why she doesn't want me sticking anything near her mouth). Today when trying to give her the painkillers i accidentally squeezed them all out without getting any in her mouth. I assume she is in a lot of pain so i gave her another syringe. She seems better now but because I gave her the second syringe I will have no painkillers for her in two days.

So my question is what can/should I give her once I run out of painkillers so that she is comfortable and able to eat? I read that you can give rats ibuprofen in very small doses but I am not sure if that is the best move here. Any advice helps!

 

[SQ]

Get more pain meds from the vet

As for over the counter pain meds, lilspaz68 can give you info on that but will need to know her weight
(a digital scale that has a tae function and weighs accurately to 1 gram is important for rat owners to have)

I hope that she will be ok, facial abscess are dangerous and many rats do not survive ... she will need to be on antibiotics for sometime and will need to be rechecked by the vet

That is a long tooth - I hope that if it grows back, it will grow back properly ...
I assume that her teeth were not wearing properly so the tooth grew so long that it punctured her gum? As you have discovered, it is essential that rat owners do weekly health checks which includes checking their teeth

Good luck to both of you. I hope she has a good recovery and is soon feeling much better

 

[Luna&Ralph]

If you do get more pain meds from the vet as SQ suggested, which I agree would probably be a good idea for such a painful wound, a good tip is to mix the meds with something tasty like maple syrup or strawberry syrup. This way, the meds taste better so they all get taken or you only lose a small amount and not the whole dose if they don’t. I assume you’re giving meloxicam, and it’s very frustrating to lose a whole dose of it, but I’ve found this method to help make it easier to give.

 

[jorats]

I would definitely give her extra pain management. It is very painful for rats. We had a little girl who had her incisor removed and she had to be on antibiotics for abscesses and lots of pain management.