ruffledfeathers
New member
I am going to run this past my vet when I talk to him (I was going to email him tonight but I know tomorrow is his day off and I don't want him feeling like I'm bugging him on his down time!) but I know a lot of us here have multiple pets and a whole variety of experiences with them. You are a great pool of information. 
Sorry if this is long but I was just trying to give the full story:
My dog Chu is about 15 and I adopted him back in 06, with broken and rotten teeth. Really in bad shape. His mouth hurt, smelled, he didn't chew his food, just swallowed it. He had so many extractions he is mostly toothless. He had one particularly tough extraction that left this (I guess it is called oronasal fistula) hole in his gums that is open into his sinuses. The vet has tried a number of ways to get it to stay closed, but in time it opens again, I think from the amount of bone loss.
He occasionally gets a collection of stuff in that hole and I have to use something to pull it out. At one point I had to pull it out and he needed an antibiotic.
Anyhow, I noticed he was continually licking the air. It was as if he had peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth, just licking the air for like a week. I kept checking his mouth but didn't see anything. Finally I used a small plastic fork and reached in the hole and found something stuck in there, cleaned it out and he seems better now.
I am wondering if there is a better method?? Is there a safe rinse, a nasal spray/antiseptic rinse I can use in that area to clean it out better than prodding around every so often?
Anyone have this experience? What have you used that was a good way to keep a hole like that clean (without making the poor dog totally miserable in the process).
Sometimes the amount of neglect you see in a dog you adopt is heartbreaking, and even after trying to address it, there is permanent damage from the neglect.
Sorry if this is long but I was just trying to give the full story:
My dog Chu is about 15 and I adopted him back in 06, with broken and rotten teeth. Really in bad shape. His mouth hurt, smelled, he didn't chew his food, just swallowed it. He had so many extractions he is mostly toothless. He had one particularly tough extraction that left this (I guess it is called oronasal fistula) hole in his gums that is open into his sinuses. The vet has tried a number of ways to get it to stay closed, but in time it opens again, I think from the amount of bone loss.
He occasionally gets a collection of stuff in that hole and I have to use something to pull it out. At one point I had to pull it out and he needed an antibiotic.
Anyhow, I noticed he was continually licking the air. It was as if he had peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth, just licking the air for like a week. I kept checking his mouth but didn't see anything. Finally I used a small plastic fork and reached in the hole and found something stuck in there, cleaned it out and he seems better now.
I am wondering if there is a better method?? Is there a safe rinse, a nasal spray/antiseptic rinse I can use in that area to clean it out better than prodding around every so often?
Anyone have this experience? What have you used that was a good way to keep a hole like that clean (without making the poor dog totally miserable in the process).
Sometimes the amount of neglect you see in a dog you adopt is heartbreaking, and even after trying to address it, there is permanent damage from the neglect.
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