Cost of dental work for cat, does this sound excessive?

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Hi everyone
Looking for some advice. Our cat has a chip to one of her front fangs. Vet said it needs to be checked and likely will need extracted with possibly one or two others. She is 3 years old so vet said less likely she will need more extracted.
I asked for the price and vet said can’t know for sure until they do the procedure but likely to be between £460-650. This is a lot of money for us, but I don’t want our cat to be in pain.
Does this price sound right or is it high? I’ve no idea and pet insurance won’t cover dental work.
Thanks in advance.

The Animal Trust, a non profit vets, costs £289, is there one near you?
www.animaltrust.org.uk/our-services/pet-dental-care/dental-extraction/

Thank you, I had googled that and looked so much more affordable. We are in Scotland though so now vet near us that does this. Though I am tempted to stay in a TravelLodge as would still probably be cheaper!

Dental work can be expensive.
I'm assuming that also includes a scale and polish? Are they doing nerve blocks for the extractions?

Does it include optional extras like pre-op bloods and iv fluids? I'd definitely do these in an older cat, but at 3 years they probably aren't needed (assuming cat is otherwise healthy & you have no reason to suspect underlying problems).

They have said will need blood test and that because a fang has a long root, surgery might take longer. I’m so stressed as the cost is so high and on top of all the price rises across energy and food in general a real shock.

Our cat has gingivitis and I was quoted nearly £500 JUST for a tooth clean. They said it would be more if teeth needed extracting. So to me that sounds reasonable.

I've been quoted similar for mine to get a scale and polish under anaesthetic with a private vet.. The PDSA (if you meet their eligibility criteria /have one locally) may be able to do it at a cheaper rate?

I paid £270 last year for extraction of one incisor plus descale of other teeth.

Those teeth have very long roots and in a young healthy cat the ligaments holding the tooth in place will be very strong - it's a very skilled job to remove these teeth and there is a risk of jaw fracture. Our rescue cat had to have all his teeth extracted except for those 4 due to an immune issue and the price was capped at 600 because if signed him up to the healthy pet club.

I paid £700 last year for sedation, dematt (the dematt was £150) and removal of one tooth.

From memory, it's the anaesthetic and after recovery care that cost.

We were quoted £600 for our 12 year old cat as her body had started to re absorb her teeth (something we never knew could happen, but does occasionally) It was closer to £900 afterwards as she needed more teeth removed.

Wow, who knew this could be so expensive. It sounds like the prices can very a lot too.

We spent £650 last year for our cat to have 3 or 4 teeth extracted under general anaesthetic so this sounds reasonable to us.
Cat dental work is stupidly expensive because of the cost of anaesthetic and because their jawbones are so delicate that it requires a lot of precision to extract without damaging or breaking the jawbone (or so our vet told us). It would have been at least £400 to have them looked at and cleaned under anaesthetic even without the extraction.

Yep sorry @NewPage our cat had to have 5 teeth removed 2.5 years ago. Sept 2019. She was 13 at the time.

The operation to have the 5 teeth removed - plus the initial consultation, her meds, antibiotics, and anti-inflammatories that she had to have to bring the infection in her mouth down, (and then the meds she had AFTER the op,) cost us £875 altogether.

Then 4-5 weeks after the op, the problem she had before re-surfaced, even though the vet said the removal of the 5 teeth would stop it. We were pissed off, because the removal of the 5 teeth was meant to fix the issue, and we were even more pissed off when we took her back, and they saw her again, then gave her some antibiotics and anti-inflammatories again, and charged us £150 for that visit, and the 2 bottles of meds!

So it was over £1000 in total! To be honest, if it had resurfaced again a couple of months later, I would have taken her back, insisted they fix it and refused to pay. Why should I pay AGAIN when they promised that the removal of the 5 teeth would fix the issue?! Fortunately, it didn't come back.

She had it return slightly a year later, but we had an unopened bottle of the anti inflammatory drops, (they still had 6 month shelf life,) so we gave them to her for 10 days, and it cleared up. 2 years after that she is still clear of it.

But yeah, vet fees are expensive. And before anyone says 'imagine if you had to pay for private health care if you're pissed off at the vet fees' that's a moot point, because I DON'T have to pay for them. And don't bother explaining WHY the fees are expensive, because I know. I still reserve the right to moan. It's a free country.

Sorry, it's been a year and a half since it returned slightly, (Sept 2020,) not 2 years.

Starting to think where I work charge too little. To have one tooth removed you'd be looking at no more than 300.but we don't do bloods on a young cat unless there's concerns or owners request it

Vet receptionist here for nearly 20 years. This price sounds about right. If it includes bloods and fluids it sounds very reasonable.

Don’t put it off as teeth can only get worse and you might find yourself with a bigger bill.

Some vets offer payment plans. Or check out to see if they do a plan that covers vaccines, flea treatment etc.. as sometime it’ll also give you a % off dentals. Our plan gives you 20% off.

My cat had all her teeth out except 3 fangs for £650. I have a few friends whose cats have had varying numbers of teeth out and it generally seems to be between £500 and £700.

Thank you, I agree they are expensive and even more so when paying a monthly fee for insurance to find out not covered and very hard to get dental cover on insurance. I love her so much though and she has been my companion as I went through a very serious health issue/treatments so just want her to be okay and don’t want anything to fester and make her worse,
I don’t qualify for the aided/subsidised care. I will see if they offer a payment plan at the vet though.

Our cat had all his teeth removed ten years ago (stomatitis). It was in USA and cost $1300 at the time. I imagine now it would be closer to $2k. Other cat had several extractions about 3/4 years ago and it was around $1k. Dental work is crazy expensive.

Forgot to say that we did a payment plan so as to spread the cost over a year.

Seems high to me.
Ours had five out, including two fangs last year. Cost £280.

Check whether the vet charges interest on the payment plan, and what the rate is. It might be cheaper to get a bank loan. Or, if you have a credit card, to use that then transfer the balance onto a 0% interest credit card with e.g. 24/30 months to pay it off.