To Burr or Not to Burr

[Dface]

So this isn’t a pressing question, because I will have to wait a fair bit of time before I can make any decision, more something that’s been going over and over in my head.

Sampras had his 4 incisors extracted at the end of Summer this year. One grew back.
After talking to the vet about it a month after the surgery he pressed that I should look into getting the extraction done again once the pasturella infection cleared, and that be the end of it.
At the time I had the extraction done I was sure I had made the best decision for my rabbit, (and for me-financially). He wouldn’t have dental discomfort, his eating would no longer be affected and he wouldn’t need a vet visit every few weeks to undergo a stressful enough procedure that left his teeth feeling ‘weird’ for a few days after.

But now, every time I consider putting Sampras under anesthetic again I feel physically sick remembering how he looked when I took him home from the vet(they weren’t planning on releasing him to me that day as they were worried about him, but i refused to leave the clinic without him and they relented)
I did post about it when it happened, but the vet clinic confused him with Yumi, and cut him open to preform a female spay, so he was under anesthetic for much longer than he should have been. From his own neuter we already knew he wasnt good under it and his recovery was always slow.

But when I went to pick him up he was covered in blood (monty python and the holy grail rabbitstyle) because he had refused to be cleaned, had eaten nothing, and was drooling an himself. His recovery was awful slow and it took him longer than Yumi to start acting remotely like himself. Within 3 weeks he had developed pasturella, leading to pneumonia. 9 weeks later we are still trying to get over that.

Personally I want him just to be left alone to do as he pleases, but no matter what way I look at it, it’s not exactly an option …we can continue the burrings until he gets so headshy about the vet that the surgery is the only option again, or I wait til he’s recovered and put him under anesthetic to get the tooth extracted again in the hopes that the surgery goes better than the last one.

Side note:He’s currently the happiest he’s been in such a long time(even though he’s sick), and for the first time since developing a malocclusion in his teeth I’ve witnessed him actually starting to use his mouth to move and play with things.

I guess what Im really looking for(despite going about it in a really long winded way) is what would you do if it was your rabbit?

[Azerane]

This is a tough decision. Without extraction you’re still facing very regular stressful visits, however another extraction doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t grow back a second time. If you do head down the route of extraction again, definitely wait until he’s fully recovered plus a bit extra. Since he had such a hard time from the anaesthetic last time, you want him to be in really good shape for surgery so that he has the best chance of recovery. It should be a much shorter and simpler op for one tooth. There’s always the option of leaving it for now, continuing with regular trimmings and just seeing how it goes.

[LBJ10]

How horrible! I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad experience and that your bunny had to go through all of that for essentially nothing. I think extraction probably was the right decision, it’s just a same that things went the way that they did.

Is this the only vet that you can go to? I’m wondering if you would have more confidence in a difference vet if you did decide to try again with the one remaining tooth.

[Dface]

Thanks for the replies guys!
I have talked to my newer vet about it today and they think that he finally had a bit more ‘luck’ than usual, his one tooth that grew back now grows at a better angle, so I will be able to leave him longer than the three weeks we used to deal with, and might be able to push it back to 6 week intervals.
I hope that the six weeks intervals suit us better and then I can go back and think about surgery in a year or two…

LBJ- it’s not my only vet but he’s renowned for how good he is in surgery, and was called in by a lot of our zoos to do them. That’s why I chose him as my vet. Unfortunately he doesnt do the prep work. He walked in to a room with a rabbit under anesthetic with its side shaved and prepared for incision. (He trusted they’d check the rabbit…and a serious communication error meant my poor baba really suffered-he really objects to going to the vet now, which is sad because he used to be a little champ about it)

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