Garden State Equine Veterinary Dentistry

02/04/2025

This horse had trauma to its mandible when it was young, which subsequently caused this tooth to develop abnormally. The odd shape to the root of the tooth is a cementoma, and can make extraction quite difficult. Luckily, rather than pursuing a surgical extraction where an incision is made externally on the side of the mandible, we were able to section this tooth orally (cut the tooth in half) and remove it through the mouth. On the last radiograph, you can see where we place our sectioning burr, cutting the tooth in half so that each piece can be removed individually. No procedure is without its potential complications, but this method of extraction is much less invasive with a lower rate of complications than a surgical extraction.

01/31/2025

Check out these cheek teeth from the horse in yesterday's video! The reason that horse squeaks when he chews is because his teeth are at the end of their life. His cheek teeth have significant wear due to geriatric attrition, with all of his teeth either being completely smooth or just retained roots. Instead of his teeth being rough like a rasp and being able to grind up his food, they are smooth like planes of glass and make a squeaking sound when he chews. You can see a picture of his "quid," the rolled up hay that he can no longer chew effectively. While he no longer needs his teeth floated, it is still important for him to have regular dental exams, especially because these worn out teeth can become quite loose and bothersome. He is a senior fellow of over 30 years old, in great body condition due to his owner's feeding program, and is doing a great job outliving his teeth!

01/23/2025

Without further investigation, this first photo may just look like some feed packing between two teeth in a senior horse. Unfortunately, this is something quite a bit more serious. What you are looking at is an oro-antral fistula, or a hole from the mouth into the sinus. This diagnosis holds a very guarded prognosis, especially in older, immune-compromised horses with PPID.

How does something like this happen? There is only a thin sheet of bone separating the roots of the teeth from the sinuses. In rare cases, when a horse has advanced periodontal disease or a long-standing tooth root infection, the infection can erode that bone, leading to bacteria and feed material contaminating the sinuses.

While certainly not impossible, even with aggressive management, these fistula still have a tendency to not heal.

Routine oral exams by an experienced veterinarian are key in preventing and diagnosing these complex dental issues.

01/16/2025

Does anyone want to take a guess at what this tentacle-looking specimen is?! Hint: it's an important component of the tooth!

This is the pulp - the blood, nerve, and lymphatic supply of the tooth. It is a very important structure that all teeth have. This is a very large specimen because it came from a young horse. As horses age, the pulp becomes narrower. Nicole, the 4th year vet student that has spent the last 2 weeks with us, was kind enough to painstakingly extract this pulp specimen for us!

01/13/2025

Future horse doctor, Nicole Mundy, rode with us last week and we are lucky enough to have her with us again this week! She's a 4th year vet student from Long Island University! We are teaching her all about dentistry, staying warm in the field, and the best way to get donkey selfies. After graduation, Nicole will be staying local and taking an associate position with Bucks County Equine!

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01/09/2025

Check out our NEWLY REDESIGNED website! Designed with clients and referring vets in mind, we hope that you can find all of the answers to your most pressing dentistry questions. Our FAQs are updated, we have written some helpful client education articles, and all the information clients need for surgery scheduling is easy to access. Other veterinarians can find the services we offer and information on how to refer cases. We invite you to check it out and watch the brief video on the home page. We look forward to continuing to offer you the best equine veterinary dental care possible! www.gardenstateequine.com

Garden State Equine Veterinary Dentistry offers expert equine dental care by Dr. Amelie McAndrews, the only Board Certified Equine Dentist™ in NJ and Eastern PA.

12/19/2024

Last week, Dr. McAndrews, Alexa, and Halle attended the 70th Annual AAEP Convention! Dr. McAndrews was invited to speak to veterinarians on several dentistry topics, Alexa attended as the AAEVT Regional Contact for NJ, MD, DE, VA, and WV and moderated the technician track lectures, and Halle was the recipient of an educational scholarship!

A great time was had learning, teaching, connecting with colleagues from all across the country, and of course - shopping!

12/08/2024

Congratulations, Halle! Halle was the recipient of the Milissa Finnegan Scholarship which is awarded by the AAEVT-American Association of Equine Veterinary Technicians and Assistants. This scholarship is for those enrolled in the AAEVT Online Certificate Academy! We are so proud of her for choosing to continue her education!

12/06/2024

Equine vet colleagues, who is going to ? We hope you’ll join us for at least one of Dr. McAndrews’ presentations! She is presenting three times in the Burst sessions on Monday morning:
Tooth or dare: Should I refer this for extraction?
Dental imaging demystified: Maxillary cheek teeth
Dental imaging demystified: Mandibular cheek teeth
Table topic on Monday afternoon:
I have an oral endoscope; now what

Hope to see you in Orlando!

11/22/2024

Ouch!

This lovely horse had a severely overlong last upper molar, which was causing a large, painful laceration in her cheek. Surprisingly, this tooth is actually not supposed to be there at all! It is an extra, or supernumerary, tooth. Horses should have 6 cheek teeth in each quadrant of their mouth, but this horse had a 7th tooth on the upper right side. Because this horse had no matching lower molar, it continued to erupt into the mouth without anything to wear against, which caused it to become overlong.

After taking radiographs to confirm there was no evidence of disease of this supernumerary tooth, we reduced the crown of this tooth as much as possible to get it closer to "normal." This horse will need frequent dental care to continue to reduce this tooth and prevent soft tissue damage.

11/18/2024

Winter is coming!

This is the time of year where we start to see underweight older horses that are struggling to keep weight on, despite their owner’s best efforts. There are many factors that can contribute to weight loss in senior horses, and one of them is the condition of their teeth.

Digestion start in the mouth, and the cheek teeth of a horse are supposed to be rough, like a rasp, in order to grind up their food to start the process. As a horse ages, their teeth start to become smooth, more like a plane of glass, and chewing hay can become difficult. Many people with senior horses are familiar with the term “quidding” - when hay starts to ball up into a cigar type shape and fall out of the mouth. This is because the teeth are smooth and can no longer grind effectively.

In the summer, older horses tend to hold their weight well when they have the availability of soft pasture grasses. In the winter however, many horses only have the option of a long stem forage (hay) through the colder months. In older horses with worn out teeth, it can be incredibly hard for them to efficiently grind up their hay well enough for it to be properly digested. Even if they are physically able to consume hay, they may not be benefitting from all of its nutrients.

These older fellows need to be supplemented with easy-to-chew forage options, like soaked hay cubes or hay pellets. They can also be fed a complete senior feed, which has forage as part of the pellet formulation. We have lots of senior clients well into their 30s that still look like teenagers because they are being fed diets appropriate for their dentition.

Photo 1: smooth, worn out teeth of a senior horse Photo 2: normal teeth in a younger horse

11/12/2024

Horses can get cavities too! Cavities (called caries) can occur in the upper cheek teeth of the horse.

Upper molars and premolars have a cup-shaped depression in the enamel that's supposed to be filled with cementum. Sometimes, this space doesn't fill with cementum, leaving a void that then gets filled with fermenting feed material. The fermenting feed material causes decay (caries).

As caries progress, they can weaken the crown of the tooth and can lead to fracture. When the tooth fractures or shows periapical disease, it is necessary to extract the tooth.

The following pictures show varying degrees of caries in the same horse. It was necessary to extract the fractured teeth in the final photo due to the advanced disease.

11/07/2024

Did you know there are only 22 board certified equine dentists in the US? This means most of the country does not have access to an equine dental specialist. Besides managing our own cases, we have an obligation, as such a small group, to teach other veterinarians about equine dentistry and keep them abreast of the latest information. Dr. McAndrews was asked to speak at the North Carolina State Veterinary Conference last weekend, where she presented four hours of lectures. We are always happy to share our passion for dentistry with others. 🦷🐎🐴

10/30/2024

We had a celebrity in our clinic this week! This fine lady is Jocelyn, and one-half of the team that won this year's Penn We Cup - a starter horse trial division at Plantation Field just for veterinarians! You would never know that this powerful and athletic mare is 20 years old just by looking at her, but her teeth were starting to show her age. Jocelyn had started to develop periodontal disease due to the nature of old age, and it had advanced enough that she required a tooth extraction. We are sure that this mare will feel even better and won't miss a beat! We love being able to help horse's live their best lives, and it feels even better when we are trusted to help out the partners of our fellow veterinarians!

Photo was provided by Jocelyn's owner and taken by AK Dragoo Photography.

10/24/2024

True or false: Horse's teeth keep growing for their entire lives.

False! A horse has a set amount of tooth in their skull and as the tooth wears, more of the tooth erupts into the mouth. In the simplest of comparisons, think of their teeth kind of like a Push Pop! Cheek teeth wear and erupt at roughly 2mm per year. It is our goal to preserve the teeth as well as we can so that they last as long as possible.

Top: A geriatric cheek tooth where the crown is completely worn out and there is no attachment left around the roots. This tooth was at the end of its life.
Bottom: A diseased cheek tooth removed from a young horse. You can see the several centimeters worth of "reserve crown" that would eventually erupt into the mouth as the horse ages. This young horse will need frequent dental care in order to carefully reduce the tooth that was opposing this one, as it will continue erupting with nothing to wear against.

10/17/2024

Sometimes miniature horses and donkeys are an afterthought when it comes to dental care. Unfortunately, these small equines can have extensive dental issues due to their size. Miniature horses and donkeys have the same number of teeth as a full sized horse, and all of those teeth need to fit into a much smaller space. They are prone to malocclusions, crowding issues, and periodontal disease. Without routine dental care, these issues can cause pain, tooth infections, excessive wear, or allow teeth to get over-long.

Luckily, we have specialized instruments made just for the smallest of equines! For routine dental care, we have a comfortable headstand at just the right height, a speculum to fit their tiny heads, a miniature mirror, our oral endoscope so that we can see in the smallest of spaces, and a smaller dental float created just for minis. In our clinic, we have customized stocks that will fit the largest of draft horses and the smallest of minis, as well as a specially made platform so that we can work on them at eye level! For extractions. we have mini-sized instruments to facilitate removing the tiniest teeth.

If your miniature friend hasn’t had a recent oral exam, or you suspect they may have a dental issue, don’t hesitate to reach out at 732-946-0767!

10/16/2024

On this we’d be remiss not to express our sincere gratitude for the one and only Alexa and Halle! They are skilled, they are patient, and they keep this practice running. We certainly couldn’t do it without them.

09/30/2024

Dr. McAndrews spent several days last week in sunny California at Veterinary Dental Forum, the largest US veterinary dentistry conference, learning the latest in equine dentistry. She also had a chance for some great hiking at Joshua Tree National Park.