Is my vet ripping me off?

[purplelass]

Bit of background - last year my cat was lame on one paw. Vet said it might be broken and I paid nearly £700 for sedation, x-rays, etc to find it was just a bite from fighting with another cat so was fixed with antibiotics. I still feel that the vet should have spotted the bite when he examined the cat but nothing I can do now...

Yesterday I took my cat for his routine jabs and check up and the vet said he had tartar on his teeth which would need a scale & polish (£270) and possibly an extraction which would push this up to £340.

I don't know what to do for the best. I haven't got that kind of money to throw around but can put it on my credit card and pay it off over a few months if I need to as I obviously want what's best for my cat.

If I don't go ahead with it, am I going to have to look for a new vet? I feel that he might be funny with me if I don't take his advice...

Often bite wounds can be tricky to find until you get the cat sedated and still, sometimes only then when you clip the leg and find the partially healed wound. The bite will have happened 5 to 7 days prior to the cat going lame.
Some of the pricing will depend on location London will be considerably more expensive than the north of Scotland.
However, costs of healthcare both human and pet are high we are just protect from our own costs due to the NHS.

Do cats really need their teeth scaled and polished though?

I'd never heard of it before and have had older cats that this one...

Yes. Mine needed theirs done last year. I would want them to be in pain if any of their teeth were rotten.

Yes they do. Mine had an infection that spread to the jawbone and he ended up with a fractured jaw.

If you leave the tartar feline oral neck lesions can develop in the teeth which are painful and can ultimately cause the tooth to snap leaving an even more painful exposed root.

My vet wanted nearly £500 to scale and polish a 13 year old cats teeth under sedation! We were gobsmacked as before it cost nearer to £200 but they said due to cat being older (I'm perfect health and weight though and no apparent teeth problems!) he would need tests beforehand and oxygen treatment during.

We took one cat to get it done and the second cat (11 years old) we took to a different vet and it was £270 with one extraction.

I will never trust one quote from a vet practice again, so call around other vets. Especially if cat is less than ten years old.