Many pets suffer silently due to the lack of optimal dental care.
The #1 concern people have when pursuing dentistry for their pet is anesthesia. Our goal at Hambright Animal Hospital is for you to find comfort in knowing that our anesthetic protocols are individually designed for your pet using their medical history, lab work and a thorough physical exam. We use a special type of inhaled anesthesia, which is used with infants, to keep your pet safe.
Throughout the anesthetic procedure, state-of- the-art equipment is used to monitor your pet’s heart rate and rhythm, blood pressure, breathing rate, oxygen saturation, temperature and exhaled carbon dioxide level. They will also rest on a warm water circulating blanket and be wrapped in a cocoon with a Bair Hugger that pumps heated air around them to stay warm. The majority of our patients go home on the day of the procedure and the most frequent observation we hear from people is how much more alert they seem as compared with prior anesthetic procedures.
Becoming pain-free
Frequently it is not until performing dentistry, including an anesthetized oral exam and full mouth digital dental x-rays, that areas of pain and infection are identified and eliminated.
At the two week follow up appointment, which is included in the cost of the procedure, the majority of our clients have already seen noticeable changes in their pet’s demeanor. Through optimal dental care, other chronic conditions like diabetes, kidney, liver and heart disease can improve! We are proponents of safely anesthetizing patients with concurrent diseases like this to eliminate the dental disease that can not only cause so much pain, but also complicate the management of those diseases.
You’re in good hands for your pet’s dental needs.
Please know your pet will be in good hands with our team. With her work now devoted solely to referral and advanced dentistry, Dr. Gleason has previously owned several veterinary hospitals with this same focus. She is excited to be seeing patients at Hambright Animal Hospital in her home community in Lake Norman.
Dr. Gleason has taught classes and lectured throughout the Carolinas teaching other veterinarians and their teams how to improve the veterinary dental services they provide for their patients.
Some of the common services we provide are:
Awake Oral Health Evaluations – Utilized to identify the disease and pain your pet cannot communicate.
Anesthetized Oral Exam and Digital Dental X-Rays – We use a state of the art digital dental sensor whose image appears instantly on the computer screen in our dental operatory. Your pet’s images will be interpreted immediately and, after an oral exam is performed, you will be contacted to formulate a treatment plan with an update on any cost changes. There will be no financial surprises as we work hand in hand with you prior to performing any treatments on your pet. We also stand by the quality of work and value of our dental services as an affordable advanced dentistry option in the Carolinas.
Root Canals – This procedure can be performed to save important fractured or abscessed teeth instead of extracting them.
Extractions – Sometimes there is simply nothing that can be done to save a tooth. In these cases your pet’s tooth will be carefully extracted and often a bone grafting material will be used to help the area heal more quickly. A post extraction dental x-ray will be performed to confirm complete extraction.
Crowns – Uninfected teeth not fractured into the pulp can be protected from future pain and infection by creating a silver titanium or tooth colored zirconium crown. Dr. Gleason has performed this type of dental work on pet patients and police/working dogs for the past decade and the materials are extremely durable.
Periodontal Therapy – Sometimes when there is evidence of periodontal disease or bone loss, particularly affecting the most important chewing teeth, we opt to perform open root planing and bone grafting (a procedure called guided tissue regeneration) to regrow the bone and offer stability to the tooth. The goal is to save the tooth and not have to extract it.
Oral Surgery – Procedures performed to remove cancerous oral masses, repair fractured jaws and treat complicated cystic lesions that are compromising the bony support in the mouth.