Cat needs dental work

I don’t think insurance cover dentals anyway.

You could find a cheaper vets, I used one in a run down area because they gave sensible advice and I trusted them.

I paid just under £400 for a dental with 5 teeth out, scale and polish, a blood test to check his kidneys were up to it and two ga because they couldn’t sedate him to get the blood test done. I’m in the midlands.

Cats have really dirty teeth and are prone to all sorts of dental problems and gum disease, which can lead to bigger problems if left untreated. I work with animals and other than neutering dentals are probably the most common treatment. It's often done as an extra treatment if the cat is having a GA for something else to save cost and reduce the number of GAs needed. As a stand-alone proceedure the price sounds in the right ball park (i.e. shockingly expensive!) Heart murmurs are also very common in both dogs and cats and have different degrees of severity, many go completely undiagnosed until much later in life without any problems. I'd have a conversation with your vet about the heart murmur as that would be my biggest concern. I'd want them to be able to show they were fully aware of what level the heart murmur was and what precautions they would be taking during surgery and possible complications. There really isn't a a non-GA way of doing dentals unfortunately.

I think I paid about £150 for a scale and polish. My friend paid £300 for his cat a free weeks ago. She had one tooth and some roots removed.
How severe is the heart murmur, has she had any further investigation?
I knew My cat had a murmur, but only found out it was grade 4 when I saw it written on their pre op notes. I had to push for further investigation. It turned out she had really bad HCM. The cardiologists saw the following week was't happy the vet put her under GA for her teeth. But she was absolutely fine.

How come you don't have insurance?

Please get it ASAP! Our cat has cost us over £6000 in vet bills in 2 years due to unexpected misfortune and injury. If we didn't have insurance we'd be in huge debt.

All cats with heart murmurs should have some investigations to check whether they have occult hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which quite a lot of cats have.
Dentals are expensive to do them well they take a long time compared to neutering. A cat spay takes me 15mins, but a cat dental can take over an hour.

Sev has been to the vet last month to have his teeth cleaned and an inflammation treated under anaesthetic - cost me 135 € (25 € extra for a tooth removal, which luckily turned out to be not necessary).

Tbh I think I'll have to give him up. Absolutely no way I can afford all this in bills.

Tbh I think I'll have to give him up. Absolutely no way I can afford all this in bills.

Poor cat. Speak to the vet about paying in instalments. And then get some pet insurance in case it happens again.

Can't get pet insurance cos he has a pre existing condition. At the end of the day if I can't afford it I can't afford it. Maybe he's better off with an owner who can look after him properly.

I was quoted much less than that by pets need vets. Can’t remember the amount. Try phoning them for a rough idea? Think it was £150ish for a scale and general anaesthetic.

I paid about £600 for my last two cats' dentals. There are some insurance plans which will cover dental issues.

(I know this is coincidence but after their dentals both - previously healthy - cats went into a massive decline almost immediately afterwards and both died within two months. I'm dreading a time when the vet wants to do it on my current two.)

My vet charges a maximum of £180 for dental treatment and will let you pay in instalments. You need to shop around. Don't give him up.

I was charged £135 for a tooth to be removed and a scale and polish recently. It was cheaper than normal because it is was through the teaching part of the practice where the students do the work under supervision. I actually prefer it to the normal practice because the cat is seen by two students and then a senior vet and they get loads more time and attention spend on them than usual.

I would phone around for quotes and also look into whether or not you would be eligible for PDSA funding.

How old is your cat? Is he otherwise healthy?

Check around practices re the price - my old vets were going to charge £1k in total for a two stage dental (scaling and extractions under anaesthetic; 300 for the first round of scaling/x-rays plus 100 for the first extractions, then 600 for the second round of extractions).

I moved to another practice who have a flat all-inclusive dental fee (inc extractions) of £300. It's not likely to be needed again for a while, fingers crossed.
Both surgeries also offered a 10% discount if you were part of their pet health club.

I don't think many insurance companies cover dental work - I have a feeling Petplan might, but unsure if that's for accidents only.

My vet charges £250 for S&P under GA. If an extraction is required then this is in addition. Went for their 6 monthly flea jabs/worming/check up and also discovered that another one has a level 3 heart murmur so need to get her seen by the specialist vet and scanned. Hopefully my insurance should pay for some of that cost (cat is 10 so has a% excess). I don't think the dental work is covered (different cat) but it's part of the cost of owning a pet.

We were quoted about £250 for scale and polish and one extraction, but when she was under it turned out she needed six teeth out - the bill was about £650 when we collected her which was a massive shock! Our insurance didn’t cover it.

Just (today) paid £350 for DCat3 to have several teeth removed. He had extra monitoring due to his grade 2 heart murmur and seems to have come through fine - already running round demanding food!

I paid 220 last month for a scale and polish and one broken tooth removal. It was 20% off. Could you try pdsa /blue cross etc? X

Did you manage to sort something out?

Is there any way you can minimise dental decay or do something preventative? My day won't eat hard food, which I heard helps.

@housinghelp101
My vet recommended either a supplement to add to drinking water, or actual tooth brushing (and said if it was her cat she'd go for the brushing).
I've bought a kit -
www.viovet.co.uk/Virbac-Toothpaste-Toothbrush-Kit/c6605/

My cat is unimpressed so far with my attempts to introduce her to the paste, let alone the finger brush (still early days though).