This is a great picture of Zar who is a 9 year old male Boxer who has had some VERY bad breath and even difficulty chewing at times. The photo below shows what his mouth looked like when we saw him. Zar is suffering from a condition called gingival hyperplasia where his gums started to over grow inside of his mouth to a point where it was actually covering some of his teeth and he was chewing on his gums when he was eating. The odour from is mouth is due to food getting stuck in the folds of the excessive gums and forming infections which also accelerated regular plaque and tartar formation in his mouth.
This is a photo of Zar's mouth immediately after being anaesthetized with his endotracheal tube in place to maintain his anaesthesia during the surgery. Some of his teeth are not even visible due to the excessive gum (gingiva) formation.
Boxer’s are one of the breeds that are predisposed to this condition and can progress to a point where they can get quite sick and lose weight due to painful eating. The next photo show’s Zar’s mouth immediately after surgery where we surgically removed as much excessive gum tissue as possible to reshape the gumline to the orginal location. He was also placed on pain medication and antibiotics immediately after surgery while his mouth healed.
This is the appearance of Zar's mouth immediately after surgery. You can now see a lot of the teeth that were covered by the overgrown gums. His upper canine tooth was extracted due to being too severely diseased by the condition.
Zar did FANTASTIC and his owners were amazed at how much better he felt and was eating. They also appreciated the dramatically improved breath!!
The final photo was taken at his 2 week re-check where his gums have completely healed and his mouth looks dramatically better then his initial photo. Since this condition has a genetic component, the hyperplasia could start forming again. However it took 9 years for Zars mouth to get to this stage and he will likely never need any more surgery in his mouth again.
Zar's mouth 2 weeks after surgery showing that his gums have completely healed and he now enjoys eating pain-free.
