My 6 year old boy lost a fang last week, I took him to the dentist yesterday and he had quite a few teeth that needed to be extracted due to resorption. All his fangs, all of his lower incisors, and 1 top incisor. They gave him a 3 day nerve block on the front of his mouth and some buprenorphine on his neck, so his tongue and jaws shouldn’t be numb.
The problem is he’s been hiding under the bed since we got home around noon yesterday. I just managed to get him to eat a couple churus by putting it on my finger and practically dislocating my shoulder to get it under the bed in front of his face. He briefly came out once, still a bit wobbly, then right back under the bed. Nothing is motivating him to come out and he’ll only eat churus if I bring it to his face, he hasn’t touched his wet food paté soup yet. Though I did wake up to him at 4 am digging around the litter box, he didn’t use it but looked like he tried to for a bit, dug around then back under the bed.
They sent him home with gabapentin (liquid to be given by syringe) that was supposed to start at 8pm yesterday but he won’t come out and I didn’t want to force it. It’s about 10am now the following day and he’s still not coming out. I don’t want to stress him out by trying to drag him out from under the bed, but I wanted to check when I should consider disrupting his hiding to give him his pain meds. From what I can tell he’s still somewhat out of it. I did get to stick my hand under the bed and pet him for a while on his back. He doesn’t seem in pain, but he did try to rub his face on the churu, my hand, and a water bowl I put under there.
While I was giving him the churu he did try to scratch his mouth with his back paw a few times and I tried to stop him by waving my hand and tapping the ground but it didn’t do much and I can’t reach him. I don’t see any blood anywhere or on his mouth, so I’m confident he’s healing well so far. I just want him to be as comfortable as possible. I don’t want to stress him out by trying to get him out, but don’t want the nerve block and buprenorphine wearing off before he gets his gabapentin. At what point should I try forcing him out from under the bed?