Equine Dentistry and Oral Surgery is one of his many specialties Johnson Family Equine Hospital. Associate Professor Dr. Jennifer Rawlinson performs equine dental procedures one week each month.
Today, a 9 year old Warmblood was given standing sedation for a tooth extraction. Standing sedation is used for most equine dental procedures, as opposed to small animal dentistry, where each patient undergoes general anesthesia.
Permanent sedation can add unpredictability to dental procedures because the horse is still awake. Because of this, the anesthesia team closely monitors the patient, which allows the dental team to focus on the teeth. “We have a very close partnership,” Rawlinson said.
A padded stock hugs the patient’s large frame while Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology Dr. Rachel Hector adjusts intravenous sedative medications. Hector rescues horses and mini-horses on her farm, where the equine dentistry service makes regular trips for oral exams and dental work.
Once the patient is sedated, resident Dr. Jen Kelley administer a peripheral nerve block to numb the extraction site. He then cleans breakfast off the patient’s teeth so they can do an oral exam with an endoscope and create the treatment plan.
This month, Kelley is completing her 4-year dual education, which means she is training in equine and small animal dentistry. CSU is only one of two universities in the country to offer dual residency positions.
Kelley accepted a position in the dental department at the University of Minnesota. “We are all so proud of Dr. Kelley as she moves on to start her own dental programs in Minnesota,” Rawlinson said.
Today’s proceedings are one of those challenging cases. The patient requires extraction of a malpositioned lower molar tooth with severe periodontal disease. Periodontal disease results in the loss of the structures that anchor the tooth to the jawbone, making access and extraction difficult.
The horse’s teeth erupt continuously throughout the animal’s life. Diet, oral makeup, dental disease and age can all affect tooth wear over time. If there is uneven wear, sharp, excessively long tooth structures can develop, which can cause pain and damage to the cheeks and tongue.
The team planned to perform a coronotomy, which uses a special drill to remove the overlapping portion of the diseased tooth, but the angulation of the teeth makes this impossible.
Instead, they work through alternative intraoral extraction techniques. The tooth starts to loosen but then breaks in half. The team turns to a surgical technique and successfully removes the remaining tooth.
“We had a strong suspicion that a surgical technique would be necessary to extract this tooth and communicated this to the owner prior to the procedure,” Rawlinson said.
When Rawlinson and Kelley aren’t solving complex equine dental cases like this one, they’re busy caring for a myriad of other patients. They perform specialized dental care on dogs, cats, livestock, wild animals, exotics and zoo animals.
“At CSU, our passion is to use our advanced dental skills to help any animal (except humans, of course),” Rawlinson said. “We are not limited to just one genre. size doesn’t matter. We are passionate about helping all animals with dental problems.”
