Anesthesia Free Teeth Cleaning is a dangerous and illegal activity that could harm or even kill your pet.
Many of our clients ask us about non-anesthetic dental cleanings. This service is becoming more and more common as pet stores, grooming facilities, and boarding facilities look to make a fast buck and feed on your fears of anesthesia. Although these companies and individuals have great marketing materials, and probably mean well, they do not do pets any good. In fact, they run a very real risk of causing actual harm to your pet.
5 Reasons why Anesthesia Free Dental Cleaning is a scam:
- It doesn't do any good and gives you a false sense of security
- It may hurt or even kill your pet.
- It is illegal ( only a Vet or RVT under direct supervision of a Vet is legally able to scale teeth below the gumline.)
- The people doing it have not undergone any formal education or training in veterinary dentistry.
- If something goes wrong you have no consumer protection or legal recourse because these people are not licensed by the State Board
If the doctors at Shadowridge Veterinary Hospital just wanted to make money, we could charge you the same $140 and hand scale or clean your pet's teeth without anesthesia. This would make the crowns of the teeth look pretty but would not do anything for the health of your pet. It is impossible to thoroughly clean and assess each tooth on all sides during an Anesthesia Free Teeth Cleaning. Usually just the outsides of the front teeth are cleaned. Molars are frequently skipped and the insides of the teeth cannot be assessed. While the tooth above the surface would look good, the infection would be sitting below the gumline and eating away at the bone that holds onto the tooth in the socket.
Cleaning tarter off the crowns of the teeth is just the tip of the iceberg. It may make you feel better to see white teeth, but it does nothing to treat the actual serious periodontal disease present. In fact, many clients get a false sense of security that they have done something good for their pet while the pet continues to suffer in silence.
Dr. Corso recently had to extract 23 teeth in a small Pomeranian whose owners had been diligently getting Anesthesia Free Teeth Cleaning done for the last year. The crowns of the teeth looked pristine, but so much of the underlying bone had continued to be eaten away from infection that the teeth could not be saved. Dr. Frank just removed 17 teeth in a dog who had been having the teeth cleaned regularly without sedation. The teeth were literally falling out of the mouth. Dr. Schiebert has some great photos of a diabetic dog with a white crown but with a deep pocket of bone loss around the tooth. When the gum was peeled back to look under it, the roots of the tooth were black from infection and calculus where the infection had festered for years. We have removed too many teeth to count that could have been saved if proper dental care had been provided to the pet earlier on in their lives. It is very sad to see teeth lost that could have been prevented.
It is impossible to clean between the teeth and behind the teeth in an awake dog or cat.
Even to clean just the crowns, the pet must be restrained or held down. Several dogs in California have died as a result of suffocation during the procedure. While the pet struggles during the procedure, they have been accidentally strangled to death. Other pets have such fear or anxiety, that the stress of the procedure is hazardous to their health as well.
In addition, your pet is at risk for aspirating or inhaling the tarter that flies off the teeth or the water rinse that is used. As I like to point out, " pet's don't spit on command." When this material is inhaled during the procedure in an awake pet, it can cause aspiration pneumonia and lead to serious illness, expensive treatment and even death. Dr. Corso has personally treated two small Yorkies who developed aspiration pneumonia after non-anesthetic dental cleanings. The dogs coughed and suffered for over a month. The pets required 6 weeks worth of antibiotic treatment and several rounds of radiographs before they recovered.
When pets are anesthetized in a light plane of anesthesia, we place a breathing tube in their throat that protects their airway from bacteria, water and debris. This prevents the risk of aspiration pneumonia during the procedure.
Unfortunately, individuals like to play up the risk of anesthesia and play on people people's fears of anesthesia. Certainly anesthesia isn't without risk. But we try to minimize that risk at Shadowridge Animal Hospital by proper patient selection (we weigh the risks and benefits to the individual based on his/her health status ), Preanesthetic exams and blood work to make sure everything is working ok on the inside, individualized drug selection and dosing, patient support with fluids and heat, advanced and constant patient monitoring consisting of blood pressure, ECG, pulse oximetry, capnography ( end tidal CO2), and temperature monitoring. As a result of our safety protocols, we are able to minimize the risk associated with anesthesia to a very very low level.
Lastly, it is important to know that Anesthesia Free Teeth Cleaning is illegal in the State of California. It is illegal for people other than veterinarians or registered veterinary technicians under a veterinarian's immediate and direct supervision to apply a scaler to the surface of a pet's tooth or under the gumline. These people have been served with cease and desist orders but continue to operate because police have other priorities especially when budgets are stretched thin. The local District Attorneys do not prosecute because they have so little resources and need to concentrate on the more serious rape and murder cases. This is a low priority for law enforcement.
Please remember the people performing this procedure are unlicensed individuals. They do not have to be trained, tested or certified. There is no regulatory agency overseeing them and ensuring proper patient care. The reason we require professionals to be licensed and follow rules is so that certain standards can be met (both in education, training, protocols, minimum standards of care, and continuing education). In addition, if your pet is harmed by a licensed individual, you can complain to the State Board. The board has the authority to take away a license of a veterinarian if they do something wrong. There is no one to complain to about Anesthesia Free Dental Cleaners - no standards, and no recourse if harm is done to your pet.
In Del Mar this past year, a local person who comes to your house and cleans the teeth, actually broke both sides of the jaw in a pet. Apparently, sometimes people use a type of bar in the mouth to keep the mouth open while they clean the teeth. This bar and the pressure applied caused the jaw to snap. This untrained individual did not realize that he had broken the jaw and proceeded to break the other side as well. The owner heard both cracks but did not realize what it was until the dog would not eat later that day and was taken to a vet where the fractures were diagnosed. The pet required several surgeries to plate and wire the jaw with a specialist. The "Gentle Dental"- type cleaner told the owner of the dog that he would pay the $5000 to fix the jaw only if the woman did not press charges with the State Board or law enforcement. Despite pleading by head of the State Board, this person did not press charges for financial reasons.
As long there is money to be made, there will always be people out there to take advantage of people's fears. At Shadowridge Veterinary Hospital, we like to tell people that they are better off not wasting their money on a procedure that will only be a cosmetic procedure. It will make the teeth look good on the surface but it is not doing anything to help the health of your pet.
But don't take our word for it...
The American Veterinary Dental College (AVDC http://www.avdc.org/ ) has come out with a strong statement against this:
"This position statement addresses dental scaling procedures performed on pets without anesthesia, often by individuals untrained in veterinary dental techniques. Although the term Anesthesia-Free Dentistry has been used in this context, AVDC prefers to use the more accurate term Non-Professional Dental Scaling (NPDS) to describe this combination.
Owners of pets naturally are concerned when anesthesia is required for their pet. However, performing NPDS on an unanesthetized pet is inappropriate for the following reasons:
1. Dental tartar is firmly adhered to the surface of the teeth. Scaling to remove tartar is accomplished using ultrasonic and sonic power scalers, plus hand instruments that must have a sharp working edge to be used effectively. Even slight head movement by the patient could result in injury to the oral tissues of the patient, and the operator may be bitten when the patient reacts.
2. Professional dental scaling includes scaling the surfaces of the teeth both above and below the gingival margin (gum line), followed by dental polishing. The most critical part of a dental scaling procedure is scaling the tooth surfaces that are within the gingival pocket (the subgingival space between the gum and the root), where periodontal disease is active. Because the patient cooperates, dental scaling of human teeth performed by a professional trained in the procedures can be completed successfully without anesthesia. However, access to the subgingival area of every tooth is impossible in an unanesthetized canine or feline patient. Removal of dental tartar on the visible surfaces of the teeth has little effect on a pet's health, and provides a false sense of accomplishment. The effect is purely cosmetic.
3. Inhalation anesthesia using a cuffed endotracheal tube provides three important advantages... the cooperation of the patient with a procedure it does not understand, elimination of pain resulting from examination and treatment of affected dental tissues during the procedure, and protection of the airway and lungs from accidental aspiration.
4. A complete oral examination, which is an important part of a professional dental scaling procedure, is not possible in an unanesthetized patient. The surfaces of the teeth facing the tongue cannot be examined, and areas of disease and discomfort are likely to be missed.
Safe use of an anesthetic or sedative in a dog or cat requires evaluation of the general health and size of the patient to determine the appropriate drug and dose, and continual monitoring of the patient. Veterinarians are trained in all of these procedures. Prescribing or administering anesthetic or sedative drugs by a non-veterinarian can be very dangerous, and is illegal. Although anesthesia will never be 100% risk-free, modern anesthetic and patient evaluation techniques used in veterinary hospitals minimize the risks, and millions of dental scaling procedures are safely performed each year in veterinary hospitals.
To minimize the need for professional dental scaling procedures and to maintain optimal oral health, the AVDC recommends daily dental home care from an early age. This should include brushing or use of other effective techniques to retard accumulation of dental plaque, such as dental diets and chew materials. This, combined with periodic examination of the patient by a veterinarian and with dental scaling under anesthesia when indicated, will optimize life-long oral health for dogs and cats.
For general information on performance of dental procedures on veterinary patients, please read the AVDC Position Statement on Veterinary Dental Healthcare Providers, which is available on the AVDC web site (www.AVDC.org). For information on effective oral hygiene products for dogs and cats, visit the Veterinary Oral Health Council web site (www.VOHC.org).
For further information, send an e-mail message to the AVDC Executive Secretary ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).
Adopted by the Board of Directors, April 2004"
In closing, the dedicated veterinarians and staff of Shadowridge Veterinary Hospital want your pet to have the most safe, highest quality, lowest stress, and economical treatment possible. Do not be fooled by the slick advertising of the anesthesia Free Teeth Cleaners! It will do your beloved pet no good, and will cost you more money in the long run.
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