Working on my Equine Dental badge

[FjordBCRF]

Since I got Charlie in 2020, I have achieved my hoof trimming badge, my nutrition badge, my vaccine reaction badge, my laminitis badge, fecal water syndrome badge, and last year I got my cervical spine AND EPM badges.

2025 is shaping up for a dental badge. Since I’ve had Charlie, Ive been told that his molars grow funny. Same vet who misdiagnosed the neck issues with laminitis gave no indication to anything other than annual dental work.

We had DVM that only does dental work do our dentals yesterday. WONDERFUL bedside manner, took his neck issues into consideration while he was sedated, was super thorough and showed me a bunch of stuff. He has a huge ulcer on his back left side and a smaller one on the right

Before she got started, I told her that recently he’s been wanting the massage gun at his TMJ/ears, and along his cheek. How that feels good and doesn’t make it hurt is beyond my capacity.

Looking for other experiences on this, but she cleaned and flushed it out real good, recommended hitting him with ivermection/eqimax as she has seen parasites cause/contribute to what he’s got going on, and 6 month dentals from here on out to make sure his teeth are balanced. She’s going to come back in a month to see if we have any improvements after the float/wormer. She did say it could be something to biopsy, but she thinks its likely from the teeth growth.

[widge]

Just want to say I love your “badge” attitude!!

[FjordBCRF]

@widge

Just want to say I love your “badge” attitude!!

I just need a sash to put them all on

[RedHorses]

If his teeth were sharp at the ulcer sites, why would there be any concern about cultures or parasites? What was distinctive about the ulcers that made the dentist concerned?

I switched my senior from annual to twice a year floats about 13 years ago after a difficult float (difficult for him, not the vet doing it as there was nothing unusual it). It took time to train my vets to do it when I asked as they’d stick fingers in his mouth to check and say “He’s not bad. He could wait.” (To which I would reply “Do it anyway. It’s easier on him if it’s done twice a year.”) His floats are simple touch ups to knock the points off. They were manual floats until we switched vets three years ago.

He’s special. My second and fourth horses were fine with annual floats, and my first horse (a senior) was good with every other year!

[FjordBCRF]

@RedHorses

If his teeth were sharp at the ulcer sites, why would there be any concern about cultures or parasites? What was distinctive about the ulcers that made the dentist concerned?

She said that she’s seen the parasite issues more recently so low hanging fruit to get him wormed. He would normally get Equimax here soon anyways so not a big deal. I asked if she wanted to grab a biopsy while he was sedated and she didn’t think it was nessecary at this point. That was more of a worst case. She seemed pretty confident though that its the way the teeth are growing.

@RedHorses

He’s special. My second and fourth horses were fine with annual floats, and my first horse (a senior) was good with every other year!

Charlie is definitely a special one too. An obscure reference, but as Dr Steve Brule says, “You can’t have a jetpack AND a cool uncle”. Charlies got the brains and personality…we just didnt hit very strong in the health dept

[Marla_000]

OP you deserve your badges!

Does anyone else feel like we’re
On a longggg, slow journey to
Getting a general medical badge
Since getting into horses?

I swear, I thought having kids
Taught me a lot about various maladies but that doesn’t
Compare to the thousands of
Things that crop up wrong with
A horse.
Sometimes I feel like a perpetual
Student studying horse medicine.

[FjordBCRF]

100%!!

[PaddockWood]

I love this post and idea so much. I’ve earned a sash too. Lots of badges.

[FjordBCRF]

We’ve gotten plenty of “fun” badges too at least