How Can I Treat my Cat’s Refractory Gingivitis?
I have an eight-year-old blue silver Maine Coon,
Sterling, who for the past several years has had
problems with recurring gingivitis of the upper
left side of his mouth. Our vet has tried several
rounds of antibiotics, and several rounds of
monthly cortisone shots. The gingivitis clears up
for a few weeks or a couple of months, and then
comes back. Now he’s talking about possibly
having to remove all of the teeth from the upper
jaw. Do you know of anything else that we can try
before making such a drastic decision?
Carol
Albany, IN
Severe, recurrent, refractory gingivitis in cats can progress to a syndrome called stomatitis. In feline stomatitis the mouth becomes severely inflamed (irritated). Feline AIDS and feline leukemia virus may trigger stomatitis, but most cases occur for unknown reasons.
Cats with stomatitis have immune systems that reject their own teeth. For this reason, extracting multiple teeth may cause the inflammation to go away. In my experience, this sort of procedure is effective about 85% of the time.
Some mild cases of stomatitis can be managed with medicines that modulate the immune system. Prednisone and cyclosporine are the most commonly used. Prednisone, in particular, may cause unpleasant side effects.
Although extracting multiple teeth sounds extreme, remember that if the gums around the teeth are severely inflamed the teeth are painful and aren’t being used. In my patients, one complication of multiple tooth extraction procedures is weight gain. After the painful teeth are removed, some cats begin to over eat!
You can read much more about stomatitis here:
http://drbarchas.com/stomatitis
And you can read about milder gingivitis and dental disease here:
http://drbarchas.com/dental_disease
About the photo: Sylvester is showing off his dental arcades. There is no sign of stomatitis!
You have questions. 
I was 8 when I had my teeth taken out due to stomatitis. Within a few days, I was back to normal, even eating dry food! I stayed happy and healthy as far as my mouth was concerned, for the time I had left. Cancer in my stomach got me, but my mouth was fine!
MUCH better than just the shots! Mom and Dad would choose extracting teeth over other procedures in the future, and were impressed with how well I did afterward. It was only after my teeth were gone that they could see how much my mouth had hurt, by how my behavior changed to happy and playful again.
Hi - two comments: I had a cat many years ago with the same problem, and the vet also said it was an auto-immune issue (the body rejecting the teeth). We had almost all the teeth pulled and the problem went away. Canned food only after that.
Second, I have two cats that now must be on canned food only for UTI issues (both Norwegian Forest Cats, 3 and 4 years old). I’m concerned about their not getting dry food will cause problems with gingivitis and plaque. What can I do about that?
Thanks in advance.
My Moppet experienced this and had her teeth removed at 5 years old. She did receive steroid injections for the remaining inflammation. She developed and died of F.I.P. several years later. She had tested negative for F.L and Feline AIDS. Some other kitties in the FIP support group also took steroids before the FIP developed. We don’t know if the steroids help cause the FIP to develop by suppressing the immune system or if there are problems necessitating steroids that also make FIP development more likely, but we suspect there may be a link and hope anyone considering steroids to treat their cat looks into alternatives just in case. F.I.P. is a nast and incurable fatal disease.
[...] How Can I Treat my Cat’s Refractory Gingivitis? Severe, recurrent, refractory gingivitis in cats can progress to a syndrome called stomatitis. [...]