Just when I thought I was going to pay off my vet bill...

Craig, the girls and I went away for the weekend, and when we got back I got a call from Susan asking if I could come out and take a look at Kaswyn's mouth. Kaswyn was acting like he had something stuck in the back of his mouth or his throat, like a stick or big wad of hay. I was planning on heading out there anyway, so I left ASAP, flashlight in hand.

When I got there Susan and I took turns holding his tongue and feeling around in the back of his mouth. Neither one of us could see or feel anything. She had explained to me that he was opening his mouth really wide ans spitting his hay out when he tried to eat. I offered him some hay because I w3anted to see what he was doing, and at first he didn't want to take any. But eventually he took a small mouth full and chewed it up. I thought everything was going to go just fine, but then he started opening his mouth, shoving his lower jaw from side to side, and rolling his eyes in his head. Definately not normal.

I called the vet and settled in for a wait, thinking about how high my bill would be. A vet call on Memorial Day would mean an emergency call, so just to have a vet come on the property would be $100. Yikes. And I didn't even get to have Dr. B come out, because he wasn't on call. They would be sending a new vet out, one who had been working there for three months, which is just about the same amount of time that she's had her license.

When she showed up I convinced Kaswyn to eat a few wisps of hay to demonstrate his issue. Thankfully he did the same thing with her watching so she was able to confirm that this was not normal. She sedated him and put in a mouth speculum but didn't find anything, except for a slight case of wave mouth but she didn't think that would cause these problems. She suggested scoping him to make sure he didn't have something going on with his throat, but found nothing there either.

As we were discussing what could be wrong, Kaswyn reached down and grabbed some hay off the bale and chewed and swallowed normally. She said this made her think that Kaswyn might have a tooth abcess, since the sedative also has a pain reliever in it. once she sedated him, his tooth felt better, so now he could eat. She made a call to the senior vet on call, who agreed with the tooth pain diagnosis. Since the new vet didn't have the x-ray machine, she wasn't able to confirm any abcess or tooth problem, but is planning on coming out tomorrow to take x-rays of his teeth.

The plan until then is to put him on antibiotics (doxycycline) and banamine for ten days. Also he will be getting no hay - instead he'll get alfalfa cubes soaked in water. She gave him a shot of banamine tonight and I gave him a bucket of wet cubes, which he really enjoyed. Then he went out with the boys in the pasture.

I am pretty sure we'll find some tooth issue from the x-rays. If not, I might ask her to call Dr. B and get his opinion. I will be paying quite a lot for this, so I want to make sure we don't overlook something. I'm guessing that today's visit will be around $250. Tomorrow I get to add another barn call plus x-rays to my bill. Whee!